Toppling Tourette’s Syndrome
Your 7-year-old son has been acting strange lately. He grunts a lot, shrugs his shoulders and twists his head from side to side. When you ask him to stop, he responds that he can’t help it. He could have Tourette’s syndrome.
Tourette’s syndrome is a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary tics, rapid, sudden movements or vocalizations that occur repeatedly in the same way. It is not degenerative. Intelligence and life span for sufferers of the disorder are no different than the general population.
The condition is named after the doctor who first diagnosed it, Georges Gilles de la Tourette, a French neuropsychiatrist who successfully assessed the disorder in several patients in the 1880s. Prior to that, in 1825, French noblewoman Marquise de Dampierre was the first reported case of the as-yet-named disorder. She suffered from various facial and motor tics that could not be explained, thus prompting study.
Some people are not familiar with Tourette’s syndrome while others have preconceived notions about the disorder, where one may engage in barking or shouting obscenities (this is known as coprolalia). Coprolalia only affects 1 in 10 people with Tourette’s.
The cause of the disorder has not been established. Researchers believe that disorder stems from the abnormal metabolism of at least one brain chemical called dopamine.
An estimated 350,000 to 450,000 children and adults in the United States have Tourette’s syndrome. About one million U.S. children and adults have other persistent tic disorders. Boys are more likely to get Tourette’s than girls.
There is no cure for Tourette’s syndrome. But the condition can improve in late teens and early 20s.
Genetic studies indicate that it is inherited as a dominant gene that causes varying symptoms in different family members. There is about a 50 percent chance with each separate pregnancy of passing the gene.
A common initial symptom of the disorder is a facial tic such as rapidly blinking eyes or twitches of the mouth. Some other early symptoms may include involuntary sounds such as throat clearing or sniffling. Later, there may be uttering words or phrases out of context, sometimes vocalizing socially unacceptable words.
Tourette’s syndrome is not a character flaw, not something under voluntary control and not a mental illness. It is a disorder of nerve signal transmission in the brain.
Tourette’s patients might be able to suppress tics for a short period of time. But they will erupt at a later time and in a different place.
What’s more, Tourette’s syndrome may be associated with other conditions like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Medicines such as haloperidol and pimozide can cut down the number of tics when a child’s social and school lives are disrupted by this illness. However, there are many with Tourette’s who don’t require medications at all.
Tourette’s syndrome can be a benign, but irritating, ailment for some. For others, it’s just another part of their makeup, like the color of their eyes or the ability to touch their tongue to their nose. It’s interesting, but easily forgotten in the everyday events of life.
