Idiocy - mental retardation in the deepest degree of oligophrenia

Idiocy( colloquial idiocy) is the extreme, most severe degree of oligophrenia. IQ is slightly higher, or below the mark of 20 points.

These patients are untrained, almost do not know how to talk, occasionally uttering incomprehensible sounds, or individual words.

There is no thinking, they do not recognize family and friends. Emotional manifestation of personality is limited to an expression of satisfaction, or displeasure. Idiots are not able to take care of themselves. They can not be taught the simplest skills of self-service, they can dress on their own.

Such people are indomitable in the process of absorbing food. They can eat continually, and do not distinguish edible from inedible, cold from hot, salty from unsalted. Often they put in their mouths even their own excrement.

Patients do not control the pelvic organs, which is why they prefer to walk in diapers all their life. Their interests are strictly limited to a narrow range of needs: food, sleep, sexual attraction. They can aimlessly, for hours swinging from side to side, beating their heads against the wall, clapping their hands.

Debility-imbecile-idiocy

Oligophrenia in such a difficult stage of dementia do not know how to use cutlery, chew food, swallowing it whole. Idiocy is characterized by a lower threshold of sensitivity: these people may not feel pain from strokes, or burns. To teach them something is extremely difficult.

Mental retardation in the idiotic stage often goes in tandem with vices of internal organs and physical anomalies. The patients have micro, or macrocephaly, they are giants, or dwarfs, the fullness reaches obesity. To this are added the defects of the face structure, the congenital pathology of the hands and feet.

Severe diseases of the endocrine system, heart defects, neurological disorders - the list of far from all misfortunes of this terrible disease. Even the most selfless family can not take care of these unhappy, helpless people for years. They usually end their lives in special boarding homes for psycho-chroniclers.

Complex of provoking factors

Two factors influence the development of idiocy: external( exogenous) and internal( endogenous), possibly their combination:

1. Endogenous : hereditary metabolic disorders, gene mutations, chromosomal abnormalities. Idiocy can cause Down syndrome, phenylketonuria, gargoyilism, microcephaly. These pathologies are inherited by a recessive trait.
2. Exogenous : infectious and toxic damage influence factors. The first include diseases such as rubella, syphilis, toxoplasmosis. To the second group: maternal alcoholism, incompatible Rh-factor, uncontrolled intake during pregnancy of some medications.

Forms and types of the disease

There are two forms of idiocy:

1. Torpid form .Patients are immobilized and as if absent in time and space. If they are left to their own devices, they will passively lie in bed for days on end.
2. The excitable form of .Patients are in a constant pendulum movement: they swing from side to side, rhythmically beat their heads against the back of the bed, or the wall, mechanically tear out the bunches of hair from the head, scratch their faces.

The main types of idiocy are determined by the following signs and symptoms:

1. Amavrotic idiocy. Very rare, rapidly advancing disease, going in two directions. Vision quickly falls due to damage to the retina, which leads to its partial loss, or absolute blindness. Dementia approaches with leaps and bounds.
2. Congenital amaurotic .It manifests itself in infancy, accompanied by convulsions, hydrocephalus, sharply reduced muscle tone.
3. Early Childhood .The moment symptoms manifest themselves in the first year of life: rapidly growing blindness and a sharp decline in intellectual development.
4. Late children's .The age of detection is up to five years. Symptoms of the disease( cramps, vision loss, dementia) increase gradually.
5. Youth .It appears in early school age - up to 10 years. It is characterized by a decrease in memory, intelligence, motor, endocrine and autonomic disorders.
6. Late .Diagnosis of this species is possible only in adults. Symptoms of organic brain damage, pathology in the cerebellum, and hearing loss begin to appear.
7. Dysostatic .The inherited defect of bones, joints, the higher nervous system, severe illnesses of internal organs.
8. Hydrocephalus .It is provoked by congenital edema of the brain.
9. Myxedema .The development of the disease begins against the backdrop of malfunctioning of the thyroid gland.
10. Moral .Mental activity is quite safe. The emotional-volitional sphere suffers more.

The progress stages of the

disease The easy, medium and severe degrees of idiocy are in essence not very different from each other.

With mild and moderate degree of mental retardation, the patient can be taught the simplest things. They have more developed sensitivity.

They can distinguish between cold from hot, high from low. Patients in a condition elementary itself to serve. They recognize relatives, or guardians, showing joy at their appearance. They can build simple sentences from a pair of words, respond to their name.

Severe degree - this is the complete shutdown of the patient from life. Oligophrenics with deep idiocy hardly move, or do not know how to walk at all, motions are disorderly, uncoordinated. They do not recognize family.

The sensitivity threshold is very low: they do not respond to pain, and also to other stimuli. They do not know how to get out of bed on their own, falling at such attempts on the floor. Patients do not speak, occasionally only making inarticulate sounds.

This degree is characterized by deep disability. As a person, a person is not present in the society. Heavy idiots spend their lives in psycho-neurological boarding schools. Life expectancy is about 40 years.

Features of the children's idiocy

Idiocy is noticeable from an early age. Babies strongly lag behind in psychomotor development. They very late start to keep the head, sit down, stand, for many walking remains unattainable progress. Even when they learn to walk, they make it clumsy, often falling and stumbling.

These children do not experience emotions, they do not cry, they do not laugh, they react only to annoyances with scream and anger, or they do not show any reaction at all. Even sharp sounds and a bright spotlight light will not make the child flinch, or blink.

If the kid puts his hand on the hot plate, he will not pull it away, but will stand and scream. Low pain threshold, however, even the feeling of pain dulls so much that the victim can hardly feel it. They are not subject to any form of meaningful activity.

Such children are easy to recognize on the street: they have too small or large head, defects in the structure of the face: hare lip, deformation of the ears, wolf mouth, uneven row of ugly teeth.

Neurological symptoms: facial asymmetry, strabismus, omission of the eyelid, facial expression senseless, frozen, the mouth is always ajar, because the excessively thick tongue does not fit in the mouth. Incontinence of urine, feces, constant drooling due to difficulty with swallowing.

Children do not study in correctional classes: this is a privilege for students with an easy degree of oligophrenia, parents should provide such care and supervision to such a child around the clock. The grown up child is usually not left in the family because of progressive dementia.

Diagnosis and tests

Pediatricians, neurologists and psychiatrists diagnose the disease. Pediatricians make a conclusion on the basis of observation of the child from birth.

Neurologists and psychiatrists assess the emotional-psychological state, the level of the intelligence coefficient, the thinking, the degree of development of reflexes.

To determine the degree of brain damage, MRI and computed tomography are performed. The data of these studies will help to establish the correct diagnosis. Supplementing the picture is the collection of anamnesis and the identification of the role of hereditary factors.

If suspected of idiocy, the patient is tested in three main directions:

• level of intelligence development;
• the ability to make logical inferences;
• analysis of speech development.

The study of giftedness oligophrenic in the hard stage does not pass.

Photo-selection and video of patients with idiocy:

Treatment directions: goals and capabilities

The idiocy can not be cured due to the fact that this pathology is congenital and inherits in a recessive type.

Treatment consists of two main areas:

• specific , aimed at the cause that caused the pathology;
• symptomatic , which alleviates the patient's suffering and is aimed at combating the consequences.

Specific treatment:

• Forms of idiocy associated with a deficiency in the body of any enzymes are treated in that they make up for their deficiency. For this, the patient is prescribed an diet with products that contain body missing substances ( proteins, vitamins, amino acids, minerals).
• Disease caused by malfunctions in the endocrine system is corrected by with hormonal and auxiliary therapy .Widely used hormone stimulants, analogues of natural hormones, as well as barbiturates, pantocrine, spermine.
• Toxoplasmosis and syphilis obtained in utero are treated with antiparasitic drugs ( Pyrimethamine in combination with Sulfadoxine, Lincomycin, Clindomycin).To this, antibiotics( Doxycycline) and antimicrobial( Metronidazole) are added.

Symptomatic treatment of

With increased craniocerebral pressure,

• is dehydrated with diuretics( Furosemide, Sydnocarb, Lasix);
• analgesia for the removal of severe headaches( Ketonal, Nimesil, Ketorolac);
• improve the blood supply to the brain with a subsequent outflow of liquor, the therapy is performed with nootropics( Piracetam, Vinpocetine, Phenibut, Fentropil).

To improve metabolism and strengthen immunity help vitamins, metabolic drugs:

• Actovegin;
• Mexidol;
• Cavinton;
• Cytoflavin;
• Vitamins of group B.

Excitability is lowered by means of neuroleptics:

• Aminazine;
• Triftazine;
• Etperazine;
• Haloperidol;
• Tizercin.

Retardation is treated with psychostimulants, which include:

• amphetamines;
• phenamines;
• Nootropil;
• Meridol.

Epileptic seizures are removed with anticonvulsant drugs:

• Carbamazepine;
• Valparim;
• Apeilepsin;
• Phenobarbital.

Patients are shown therapeutic exercise group method, or at home, massage, physiotherapy, hydrotherapy. It is impossible to cure idiocy, but it is quite possible to alleviate the condition of patients if they provide them with a whole range of medical and rehabilitation measures.

Is it possible to prevent the fall of the intellect?

All precautions to prevent the development of a terrible disease consist of primary and secondary prevention:

1. Primary .It consists in the constant consultation of a pregnant woman with a gynecologist, the passage of genetic studies of the fetus for the early detection of developmental anomalies. A careful attitude to the health of the future mother, the timely treatment of infectious diseases, the rejection of habits that can ruinously affect the formation and development of the fetus.
2. Secondary .Early detection, full treatment and rehabilitation of such patients. Medical measures, including occupational therapy and the work of educators-defectologists, can in sum give a good result.