tourette's
Not many people have heard of Gilles Tourette's Syndrome (GTS). It is a complex and intriguing disorder that displays distinct physical characteristics and unusual mental behaviour. It was the French neurologist Gilles de la Tourette who, in 1885, was the first to conduct a systematic study of the motor and vocal tics which are a hall mark of the syndrome. Over a century later the diagnostic criteria for GTS are still being refined, but the generally accepted diagnostic criteria found in the DSM - 111 - R of the American Psychiatric Association (1987) are as follows:a) Both multiple motor and one or more vocal tics which must have been present at some time during the illness, although not necessarily concurrently. b) The tics occur many times a day ( usually in bouts), nearly every day, or intermittently, throughout a period of more than one year. c) The anatomical location, number and frequency complexity and severity of the tics change over time. d) Onset is before the age of 21 years. e) Symptoms do not occur exclusively during psychoactive substance intoxication or known central nervous system disease, such as Huntington's chorea and post-viral encephalitis. Although the disorder is still considered to be qu
Although I started this essay by saying that 'not many people have heard of GTS' it would appear that GTS is no longer the rarity it was once considered to be and although it's still not common it's believed that the prevalence of the syndrome is far higher than the figures quoted from the reported cases in Britain. For many of the sufferers of GTS a clinical diagnosis, learning that there is a name for the illness they are suffering from plus an improved understanding of the disorder is often sufficient to help the individual adapt and cope with their problems without the use of medication. Therefore, for many of the patients who suffer from a mild form of GTS a clinician might only have to see the patient once or twice more after the initial appointment to give the patient some feedback about the investigations that they had performed; and to give further information about the condition both to the patient, their relatives and perhaps advice to teachers about how to cope with a child who has been diagnosed as being a GTS sufferer. Characteristically, over a GTS patients lifetime the types of tic's they experience will change, old tic behaviour will be replace by a new one. Despite the fact that GTS has been classified as an "involuntary" movement disorder often a patient can suppress the symptoms during an interview or while at school. This ability to suppress the tic's at the expense of inner tension is a characteristic of the disorder.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2514
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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