Treatment For Parkinsons Disease And Sex Issues
Treatment for erectile dysfunction in men might include medications like Viagra, as well as physical or psychological therapy. In some cases, surgical implants may also be used. Womens sexual health in Parkinsons is slightly more complex due to their hormonal makeup.
Treatment options for women are somewhat restricted, but they include adding lubrication and seeing a therapist. Many women find timing sex during their ON periods to be helpful.
In terms of reproductive health, there is no evidence to suggest that Parkinson’s disease causes problems with pregnancy although there have been no studies into the safety of PD medication during pregnancy.
Parkinsons disease and sex can be challenging, but there are plenty of treatments and solutions that can work for both men and women. Its important to communicate with your partner and talk through any feelings you might be experiencing, especially if youre struggling with body image or confidence issues. Navigating sex during Parkinsons disease can be difficult for partners, too, so remember to keep the dialogue open in your relationship.
APA ReferenceSmith, E. . Parkinsons Disease and Sex Issues: Libido, Sex Drive, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2021, August 26 from https://www.healthyplace.com/parkinsons-disease/effects/parkinsons-disease-and-sex-issues-libido-sex-drive
Guide To Seeking Prompt Assistance
Now that you have learned about personality changes when you observe people around you undergo a rapid alteration in their behavior, it is advisable to learn more about the change. Professionals in that field are available to assist with this. Contact the number to assist with around-the-clock information on dealing with behavioral changes from experts. It is courtesy of Foundations Recovery Network on personality changes.
Management Of Personality Changes
The best approach is to combine drug therapy with different psychotherapy strategies specifically suited to specific patients.
A stroke can be treated at the earliest stages with prompt and effective treatment, restoring normal behavior and function, and personality changes. However, this may not be the situation in some other instances. Also, drug therapy and counselling may be necessary. When disease progression cannot be remedied with medication, symptomatic treatment is carried out to manage the situation. The elderly may also experience behavioral modifications such as age-induced loss of memory and irritability. A holistic approach is also necessary to yield the best result in personality changes.
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Personality Changes With Dementia
Dementia, which is caused by illness or injury, is an impairment of at least two cognitive brain functions.
Cognitive brain functions include:
- judgment
- behavior
The loss of neurons in the frontal lobe of the brain can cause people with mild dementia to experience personality changes such as becoming more withdrawn or depressed.
People with moderate dementia may experience more significant personality changes, such as becoming agitated and suspicious of others.
S For Assessing Personality Changes Following Dbs
Supplementary Table 1 gives detailed descriptions of studies included in our review, grouped according to primary methods. Most research used quantitative methods, while qualitative methods are growing increasingly common. There is an emerging trend for studies to assess patient valued characteristics using a mixed-methods approach. Across methods, most studies relied only on self-reports, though a few assessed caregiver or clinician perspectives.
Quantitative Methods
Quantitative research on personality change comes from meta-analyses and primary studies employing retrospective, cross-sectional, prospective, and randomized clinical trial designs. This research has some general limitations. Meta-analyses focused mainly on clinical measures of psychiatric symptoms rather than scales assessing normal range personality. Most retrospective, cross-sectional, and prospective studies included small sample sizes, limiting power to detect small- to moderate effect sizes. And there has been one RCT to date, which decreases the confidence with which causal claims can be made. Additionally, quantitative studies focused almost exclusively on dispositional traits rather than characteristic adaptations and narrative identity.
Qualitative Methods
Patient Valued Characteristics: A Mixed Methods Approach
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Medicines For Parkinson’s Disease
Medicines prescribed for Parkinson’s include:
- Drugs that increase the level of dopamine in the brain
- Drugs that affect other brain chemicals in the body
- Drugs that help control nonmotor symptoms
The main therapy for Parkinson’s is levodopa, also called L-dopa. Nerve cells use levodopa to make dopamine to replenish the brain’s dwindling supply. Usually, people take levodopa along with another medication called carbidopa. Carbidopa prevents or reduces some of the side effects of levodopa therapysuch as nausea, vomiting, low blood pressure, and restlessnessand reduces the amount of levodopa needed to improve symptoms.
People with Parkinson’s should never stop taking levodopa without telling their doctor. Suddenly stopping the drug may have serious side effects, such as being unable to move or having difficulty breathing.
Other medicines used to treat Parkinsons symptoms include:
- Dopamine agonists to mimic the role of dopamine in the brain
- MAO-B inhibitors to slow down an enzyme that breaks down dopamine in the brain
- COMT inhibitors to help break down dopamine
- Amantadine, an old antiviral drug, to reduce involuntary movements
- Anticholinergic drugs to reduce tremors and muscle rigidity
Study Of Personality In Essential Tremor
The TPQ is a 98 item self administered true/false instrument. It has been used in assessing personality characteristics in neurological illnesses such as Parkinsons disease and migraine. The TPQ measures personality traits across three higher order dimensions. These dimensions are harm avoidance , novelty seeking , and reward dependence . Each dimension may be evaluated with a subscale score , which are summed to yield a TPQ score . The TPQ correlates well with other measures of personality in common use, has been translated into several languages and used cross culturally with success, and has been shown to be stable over time as an assessment of personality.
Personality dimensions measured by the tridimensional personality questionnaire
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What Are The Symptoms Of Parkinsons Disease
Symptoms of Parkinsons disease and the rate of decline vary widely from person to person. The most common symptoms include:
Other symptoms include:
- Speech/vocal changes: Speech may be quick, become slurred or be soft in tone. You may hesitate before speaking. The pitch of your voice may become unchanged .
- Handwriting changes: You handwriting may become smaller and more difficult to read.
- Depression and anxiety.
- Sleeping disturbances including disrupted sleep, acting out your dreams, and restless leg syndrome.
- Pain, lack of interest , fatigue, change in weight, vision changes.
- Low blood pressure.
What Causes Personality Changes
Because the brain substantially affects our personality, changes to it can influence who we are. How one thinks, experiences emotions, and enacts certain habits can be seen as demonstrations of their personality. As Parkinsons disease progresses, it frequently affects memory and movement, which can change how a person functions.
Many caregivers note that their loved one with Parkinsons experiences heightened anxiety and depression throughout the course of their disease progression, and its possible that these feelings can contribute to personality changes. My dad has experienced changes in his anxiety levels, and I suspect there have been chapters of depression as well. But I dont think his personality has changed because of his battles with these symptoms. Hes his same old comedic self, passing time by telling jokes and watching local wildlife.
Im not sure hes the same person he was before diagnosis, but I dont know if thats due to DBS or Parkinsons disease. Were all fluid. We change with the tides and adapt over time. Who is to say that the changes my dad sees are a result of his disease?
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Personality Change After Stroke
After you experience a stroke, during which a blood vessel in your brain ruptures or the oxygen supply to your brain is interrupted, you may have symptoms including a personality change.
Some stroke survivors experience apathy. They dont seem to care about anything.
Others, especially survivors of strokes that occur in the brains right hemisphere, may neglect one side of their body or objects. For example, they may ignore one side of their body or food on one side of a plate.
Following a frontal lobe or right hemisphere stroke, some people may experience impulsive behavior. This may include being unable to think ahead or understand the consequences of their actions.
What Are The Surgical Treatments For Parkinsons Disease
Most patients with Parkinsons disease can maintain a good quality of life with medications. However, as the disease worsens, medications may no longer be effective in some patients. In these patients, the effectiveness of medications becomes unpredictable reducing symptoms during on periods and no longer controlling symptoms during off periods, which usually occur when the medication is wearing off and just before the next dose is to be taken. Sometimes these variations can be managed with changes in medications. However, sometimes they cant. Based on the type and severity of your symptoms, the failure of adjustments in your medications, the decline in your quality of life and your overall health, your doctor may discuss some of the available surgical options.
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What Causes Parkinsons Disease
Parkinsons disease occurs when nerve cells in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra become impaired or die. These cells normally produce dopamine, a chemical that helps the cells of the brain communicate . When these nerve cells become impaired or die, they produce less dopamine. Dopamine is especially important for the operation of another area of the brain called the basal ganglia. This area of the brain is responsible for organizing the brains commands for body movement. The loss of dopamine causes the movement symptoms seen in people with Parkinsons disease.
People with Parkinsons disease also lose another neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. This chemical is needed for proper functioning of the sympathetic nervous system. This system controls some of the bodys autonomic functions such as digestion, heart rate, blood pressure and breathing. Loss of norepinephrine causes some of the non-movement-related symptoms of Parkinsons disease.
Scientists arent sure what causes the neurons that produce these neurotransmitter chemicals to die.
Inclusion Criteria And Search Strategy
We included articles that met the following criteria: meta-analyses and primary studies including PD patients who had undergone DBS that assessed personality characteristics encompassed by the multilayer framework described previously. To compile our list of articles, we relied on previous knowledge of the relevant research, conducted searches on Google Scholar including the terms Deep Brain Stimulation,DBS,Parkinson’s Disease,personality, and personality change , and used connectedpapers.com to discover relevant papers that cited articles we decided to include in the review.
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Change From Deep Brain Stimulation
When Dad received deep brain stimulation in 2019, we worried that not all of the changes hed experience would be positive. After all, a surgeon was going to drill a hole in his skull. What were the chances that he would be the same person when he emerged from anesthesia? He could lose pivotal connections in his brain. He could lose pieces of who he was.
A study published in the journal Parkinsons Disease in 2015 found that relatives of Parkinsons patients noticed a decrease in premeditation before actions in their loved ones following DBS, which essentially means greater impulsivity. This suggests, at least according to this study, that DBS surgery could have an impact on ones ability to plan their actions. The same study noted that the patients ability to control their emotions after surgery could change.
When my dad came out of surgery, he was worried. It was as if hed been gripped by a bout of panic, and there was no pumping the brakes. Hed chosen to receive the surgery, and nothing he did now could change the outcome. He feared that it mightve done more harm than good. He worried that his tremors would worsen, or that hed lose even more abilities than hed already lost. I worried that Id lost pieces of my dad.
Personality And Addictive Behaviours In Early Parkinson’s Disease And Rem Sleep Behaviour Disorder
A similar pattern of personality change is seen in PD and RBD compared to controls.
-
The similar pattern found suggests these personality changes occur before motor symptoms.
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Extraversion, linked with reward sensitivity, is associated with smoking and alcohol.
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Lower addictive behaviours before and after motor symptoms are not explained by personality alone.
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This suggests that inherent factors other than simple dopamine dysfunction drive these differences.
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Symptoms Of Parkinsons Disease
Parkinson’s disease has four main symptoms:
- Tremor in hands, arms, legs, jaw, or head
- Stiffness of the limbs and trunk
- Slowness of movement
- Impaired balance and coordination, sometimes leading to falls
Other symptoms may include depression and other emotional changes difficulty swallowing, chewing, and speaking urinary problems or constipation skin problems and sleep disruptions.
Symptoms of Parkinsons and the rate of progression differ among individuals. Sometimes people dismiss early symptoms of Parkinson’s as the effects of normal aging. In most cases, there are no medical tests to definitively detect the disease, so it can be difficult to diagnose accurately.
Early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are subtle and occur gradually. For example, affected people may feel mild tremors or have difficulty getting out of a chair. They may notice that they speak too softly, or that their handwriting is slow and looks cramped or small. Friends or family members may be the first to notice changes in someone with early Parkinson’s. They may see that the person’s face lacks expression and animation, or that the person does not move an arm or leg normally.
People with Parkinson’s often develop a parkinsonian gait that includes a tendency to lean forward, small quick steps as if hurrying forward, and reduced swinging of the arms. They also may have trouble initiating or continuing movement.
Personality Changes After Deep Brain Stimulation
Deep Brain Stimulation is a well-known and accepted treatment for neurological and psychiatric diseases. It consists of the implantation of electrodes into the brain, which send small electric impulses to specific neurons and pathways.
In Parkinsonâs disease , DBS clearly improves patients symptoms, functionality and quality of life in the long run. Nevertheless, it seems that the electrodes do not have motor-specific functions. DBS influences mental states and personality and in some cases it can even lead to a ânew personalityâ.
One recent study showed that in 45 PD patients submitted to subthalamic nucleus DBS there was a personality change in the direction of increased impulsivity. Surprisingly, relatives were more sensitive to this alteration than patients themselves. The lower sensitivity of the patients to the mood and behavioral changes could be the reason for the complaint: âhe/she is no longer the sameâ.
Yves Agid described that up to 65% of the married PD patients experienced a conjugal crisis after the operation. Different reasons could be found for this, but personality changes could clearly play a role.
Are we changing patients âidentityâ by using DBS? Probably yes: we are making them think differently, take risks in a different way and make decisions in a new manner.
References
Frank MJ, Seeberger LC, & Oreilly RC . By carrot or by stick: cognitive reinforcement learning in parkinsonism. Science , 306 , 1940-3 PMID: 15528409
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What Lifestyle Changes Can I Make To Ease Parkinsons Symptoms
Exercise: Exercise helps improve muscle strength, balance, coordination, flexibility, and tremor. It is also strongly believed to improve memory, thinking and reduce the risk of falls and decrease anxiety and depression. One study in persons with Parkinsons disease showed that 2.5 hours of exercise per week resulted in improved ability to move and a slower decline in quality of life compared to those who didnt exercise or didnt start until later in the course of their disease. Some exercises to consider include strengthening or resistance training, stretching exercises or aerobics . All types of exercise are helpful.
Eat a healthy, balanced diet: This is not only good for your general health but can ease some of the non-movement related symptoms of Parkinsons, such as constipation. Eating foods high in fiber in particular can relieve constipation. The Mediterranean diet is one example of a healthy diet.
Preventing falls and maintaining balance: Falls are a frequent complication of Parkinson’s. While you can do many things to reduce your risk of falling, the two most important are: 1) to work with your doctor to ensure that your treatments whether medicines or deep brain stimulation are optimal and 2) to consult with a physical therapist who can assess your walking and balance. The physical therapist is the expert when it comes to recommending assistive devices or exercise to improve safety and preventing falls.
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Depression In Parkinsons Disease
Depression is the most common neuropsychiatric disturbance in Parkinsons disease affecting about 40% of the patients. It is particularly crucial as it is associated with a higher rate of progression of the symptoms, greater decline in the cognitive skills, leading to a poorer treatment compliance and quality of life and increase in the financial burden on the caregiver. It has also been researched that as compared to the motor disability in Parkinsons patients, depression has been found to be a more sensitive predictor of the overall disability of the affected individual.