CONVULSIONS, PARALYSIS AND EPILEPTICS
Paralysis: Is anabily to move certain muscles.
This is usually a failure of the motor nerve
to carry impulse to the muscle s concerned.
If motor nerve to a limb are cut as
a result of an accident, the muscle cannot be made to contract. If the damage
is not extensive, the nerve may grow again.
Spinal injury may lead to paralysis.
If the spina chord is damage by the disease or injury, the part below the
damage area may have neither motor function nor sensation. Poliomyelitics
sometimes result in paralysis because the polio virus affect the motor nerve of
the spinal chord.
Stroke
usually lead to partial paralysis because the blood supply to certain
brain cells is off for a time.
Hysterical paralysis I is a
psycological disorder. Although there is no sign of disease or obvious damage
of the brain, the is unable to move one or more limbs. If the speech centre id affected, the patient
may loose power of speech. If, under the influence of drugs or hynosis, the
patient regains the use of affected part, ths is an indication that the cause
of the paralysis is psychological or
pyschosomatic and not the result of
injury or infection.
Convulsions: this is involuntory burst of the
muscles contraction involving the face and the limbs. It result from an
irritation of motor nerve cells in the brain and spinal chord. In diabetics
convulsion may occur if the brain cells are deprive of sugar, in tetanus the convulsions
are the result of tetanus toxin acting on the neuronin the spinal chord. In
young children the most usually cause of convulsion is high temperature
resulting from an infection illness.
Hysterical convulsions are produce
by a psychological state rather by any disease or disorder of the nerve system.
They may be induced by the fervour of the religion or ritual ceremony
energetic, rhythmic dancing movements.
The treatment of the convulsions is
injection of anti-convulsant, tranquilizing drugs. If the causes of convulsion
is an abnormal high body temperature, attempt should be made to lower the
temperature as soon as possible.
Epilepsy this arises in the brain as a result of a large number of
nerve cells all firing off impulses at
the same time. The affect may be a brief
loss of conciousness; the person just stop what he is doing and just stares
blankly ahead for 30seconds. This form of epilepsy is sometimes called ‘petit mal’. It ocurs most offen in
children and young people and dissapear as they get older.
The more severe form of epilepsy is
called “grand mal” and involves loss
of conciousness, falling over and convulsion lasting for a minute or two. The
patient sometimes has sensations that tell him or her that an attack is about
to happen.
Anybody may
experience epilepsy as a result of head injury, meningitis or a blockage of
some blood vessels in the brain. People described as epileptics have attack
without any obvious cause although it is likely that there is some small area of damage in the brain which set
off the discharge of nervous impulses.
Epileptic
are normally in other respect and are not mentally retarded unless their
disease is the result of serious brain damage at birth. Because epileptic
attacks cannot usually be predicted and often involve a temporary loss of
conciousness, it is important that epileptics should not work in situation
where they might be injured either by themselves or other people. Most coutries
do not allow epiletics to drive.
Epileptic attack can be control by
giving anticonvulsant drugs at times when seizures most often occur. These
drugs are depressants and have the disadvantage of making the patient less
mentally alert than usual.
