How to diagnose and treat debility in children

Oligophrenia is an acquired in early childhood or congenital disease characterized by underdevelopment of mental processes and mainly affects the intellectual abilities of a person.

Incomplete development can be noticed already in early childhood. For example, doctors pay attention to the late manifestation of the child's emotions on the mother's face, slowness and lethargy. It is not good when a child is not interested in games surrounding him and for a long time monotonously manipulating one subject. From time to time children start to sit, talk late, with great difficulties they learn self-service skills.

Childhood debility always manifests itself with problems with speech production - vocabulary is slowly enriched, indistinct pronunciation of sounds is noted, in the speech there are gross distortions. Such phenomena can be seen at a fairly early age, but parents do not pay too much attention to it. And by the time the child arrives at school it becomes obvious that he is not ready for training and he needs an examination of a psychoneurologist.

Signs of the disease

The mild degree of debility in the child allows you to keep the memory at a satisfactory level. These patients often reveal good musical data and the ability to quickly count. But such children can hardly form abstract concepts, independent judgments and conclusions.

Because of the narrowness of thinking, sick people become easily suggestible and are influenced by outsiders.

Children with debility can not master the standard program of a comprehensive school, so their education is conducted in special, general educational institutions. With due attention from teachers and families, children perform well simple manipulations and do not become a burden.

Signs of debility are also the impossibility of controlling one's own emotions. The child is very stubborn and quick-tempered, and also has a tendency to vagrancy.

Diagnosis process

The diagnosis of debility regardless of age is based on identifying signs of inadequate development of the psyche and mental processes, as well as the limitations of its nature. To do this, the expert carefully acquaints himself with the history of the disease, establishes the dynamics of the development of the psyche and the structure of its insufficiency, a somatic and neurological condition, an internal correlation of possible causes and manifestations of the disease.

It is difficult to detect oligophrenia and its degree of progression, especially in the younger school age, because the criteria for diagnosing pathology can be applied only for school-age children. Despite this, it is required, as early as possible, to identify deviations.

The less the age of a person, the more conditional will be the definition of the degree of dementia. This is a statement of possible defects in the development of intelligence, establishing a prognosis for the further development of the disease, which in most cases depends on the possibilities of compensating the child's brain and on the treatment and training used.

Treatment of the disease

Specific treatment of pathology is carried out on condition of establishing the main cause that triggered the development of the disease.

In case of debility caused by a disturbance of metabolic processes in the body, the patient is prescribed compliance with the diet. When endocrinopathy is treated with hormonal drugs. In order to stimulate the work of mental processes, aminalon, piracetam and other medicines and vitamins of group B are used. Treatment and educational therapy, the organization of labor training and professional adaptation play an important role in the compensation of defects.

In the social adaptation and rehabilitation of people with a diagnosis of oligophrenia in the stage of debility simultaneously with health authorities, special educational institutions take part.

Prevention of the disease

Prevention of some hereditary varieties of debility is carried out already during the gestation phase of the child, namely:

• conducting a survey of pregnant women to detect the defeat of the body by syphilis, toxoplasmosis, etc.;
• Preventing the infection of the pregnant woman with rubella or other viral infectious pathologies;
• highly skilled assistance in the process of birth, prevention of injuries to the child at birth and infecting newborns with serious infectious diseases.

These manipulations can effectively resist the emergence of congenital debility in children.