I visited many medical practitioners till today for my father. The only
answer they gave was unfortunately he is suffering from PSP. For those who
don't know what is PSP, it is a neuro degenerative disorder. The cause of
this disorder is not known yet but the symptoms are very much similar to
parkinsons disease.
The patient at each moment fights with the help of his mind with his own body. This is what I could feel from my father. I pay hats off to him for having a patience to deal with the disorder in his own way but most of the times it becomes frustrating to the people who are nursing the patient to know what exactly his problem is. Many relatives visit us and they actually do not know what the disease is and they make us dis-ease by expressing their own concerns of the half knowledge they get from the perception.
A person having PSP will have a very still gaze, mostly it will be vertically upward or downward. This expression on face itself makes the person talking to him think that the patient is not interested in what he is talking. The vertical gaze problem becomes dominant and subsides with the time in a cyclic manner.
Second prominent symptom I can see is the person has a slurry speech. And most of the times it discourages patient to have a talk. If the person visiting the patient doesn't know it gives a very wrong impression about the mental state of the person. Just because of these two symptoms he begins to think that the patient has become mentally disabled. This is JUST NOT TRUE. The patient is very much mentally active and normal. The main interfaces of communication for him that is his eyes and his speech have got badly affected due to PSP. Please don't understand it as his unwillingness to have any communication with him. If you are good enough speaker it will be really good to spend time with the patient by telling some new happenings, healthy thoughts, humorous events you witnessed. But instead people spend of lot of time talking about the patients disorder. It is just not very healthy for the patient!!
The third symptom easily noticeable is rigidity in patient’s body while moving. Right from neck to the toe the body muscles of the patient become rigid enough (or lose flexibility, in whatever way it is easy to understand) so that he can't take long normal steps or swing his hands while walking, but takes short steps with the hands near his body even while walking in the house.
www.psp.org has a mention of all the information about PSP. Visit it and keep it in mind when you visit a PSP or parkinsons patient. As far as possible talk everything apart from the patients problems when you visit him. This can be true in fact while visiting any patient but we are so much accustomed to become part of patients problems and try to solve it using any third hand information we have. And most of the times the discussion is very fruitless and only depressing for the patient. Even I am not a odd man out most of the times about being part of it but now I can sense the subject orientation and take steps to bring it to a meaningful discussion.
My future posts will deal with different ways I thought which can help the patient live a near to normal life (on emotional basis) and hence give an overall satisfaction to all the people in the house. At present my only answer to anybody who says that PSP or parkinsons patient can't be cured is "Why not? It is a disorder which has to be fixed. It is a whole new journey you need to start with. Don't give up!!"
The patient at each moment fights with the help of his mind with his own body. This is what I could feel from my father. I pay hats off to him for having a patience to deal with the disorder in his own way but most of the times it becomes frustrating to the people who are nursing the patient to know what exactly his problem is. Many relatives visit us and they actually do not know what the disease is and they make us dis-ease by expressing their own concerns of the half knowledge they get from the perception.
A person having PSP will have a very still gaze, mostly it will be vertically upward or downward. This expression on face itself makes the person talking to him think that the patient is not interested in what he is talking. The vertical gaze problem becomes dominant and subsides with the time in a cyclic manner.
Second prominent symptom I can see is the person has a slurry speech. And most of the times it discourages patient to have a talk. If the person visiting the patient doesn't know it gives a very wrong impression about the mental state of the person. Just because of these two symptoms he begins to think that the patient has become mentally disabled. This is JUST NOT TRUE. The patient is very much mentally active and normal. The main interfaces of communication for him that is his eyes and his speech have got badly affected due to PSP. Please don't understand it as his unwillingness to have any communication with him. If you are good enough speaker it will be really good to spend time with the patient by telling some new happenings, healthy thoughts, humorous events you witnessed. But instead people spend of lot of time talking about the patients disorder. It is just not very healthy for the patient!!
The third symptom easily noticeable is rigidity in patient’s body while moving. Right from neck to the toe the body muscles of the patient become rigid enough (or lose flexibility, in whatever way it is easy to understand) so that he can't take long normal steps or swing his hands while walking, but takes short steps with the hands near his body even while walking in the house.
www.psp.org has a mention of all the information about PSP. Visit it and keep it in mind when you visit a PSP or parkinsons patient. As far as possible talk everything apart from the patients problems when you visit him. This can be true in fact while visiting any patient but we are so much accustomed to become part of patients problems and try to solve it using any third hand information we have. And most of the times the discussion is very fruitless and only depressing for the patient. Even I am not a odd man out most of the times about being part of it but now I can sense the subject orientation and take steps to bring it to a meaningful discussion.
My future posts will deal with different ways I thought which can help the patient live a near to normal life (on emotional basis) and hence give an overall satisfaction to all the people in the house. At present my only answer to anybody who says that PSP or parkinsons patient can't be cured is "Why not? It is a disorder which has to be fixed. It is a whole new journey you need to start with. Don't give up!!"
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