Nervous diseases are diseases that develop as a result of damage to the brain and spinal cord, as well as peripheral nerve trunks and ganglia. Nervous diseases are the subject of study of a specialized field of medical knowledge – neurology. Since the nervous system is a complex apparatus that connects and regulates all organs and systems of the body, neurology closely interacts with other clinical disciplines such as cardiology, gastroenterology, gynecology, ophthalmology, endocrinology, orthopedics, traumatology, speech therapy, etc. The main specialist in the field of nervous diseases is a neurologist.
ND can be genetically determined (Rossolimo-Steinert-Kurschmann myotonia, Friedreich’s ataxia, Wilson’s disease, Pierre-Marie ataxia) or acquired. Congenital malformations of the nervous system (microcephaly, basilar impression, Kimberly anomaly, Chiari anomaly, platybasia, congenital hydrocephalus), in addition to hereditary factors, can lead to unfavorable conditions of intrauterine development of the fetus: hypoxia, radiation, infection (measles, rubella, syphilis, chlamydia, cytomegaly, HIV), toxic effects, the threat of spontaneous termination of pregnancy, eclampsia, Rh conflict, etc. Infectious or traumatic factors affecting the nervous system immediately after the birth of a child (purulent meningitis, asphyxia of a newborn, birth trauma, hemolytic disease) often lead to the development of such nervous diseases as cerebral palsy, childhood epilepsy, oligophrenia.
Acquired ND are often associated with infectious lesions of various parts of the nervous system. As a result of infection, meningitis, encephalitis, myelitis, brain abscess, arachnoiditis, multiple encephalomyelitis, ganglioneuritis and other diseases develop. A separate group consists of traumatic etiology: TBI, spinal cord injury, traumatic neuritis. ND that occur in old age are mainly caused by vascular changes (dyscirculatory encephalopathy, TIA, ischemic stroke, hemorrhagic stroke), less often by metabolic disorders (Parkinson’s disease). The incidence of oncological nervous diseases remains high. The limited space inside the skull or spinal canal leads to the fact that even benign tumors of this localization (astrocytoma, craniopharyngioma, ganglioneuroma) have a malignant course. In addition, the problematic nature of complete removal of CNS tumors causes their frequent recurrence.
Clinical manifestations directly depend on which part of the nervous system was involved in the pathological process. Thus, nervous diseases with brain damage can be accompanied by headache, dizziness, gait and coordination disorders, speech disorders, hearing and vision loss, paresis and paralysis of a central nature, changes in the psyche. Nervous diseases associated with spinal cord pathology are manifested by motor and sensory disorders below the lesion level. Diseases of the peripheral nervous system (trigeminal neuralgia, facial neuritis, intercostal neuralgia, cervical plexitis, polyneuropathies, radial nerve neuropathy, femoral nerve neuropathy, etc.) are characterized by pain syndrome, sensitivity disorders, muscular atrophy, motor disorders, vegetative and trophic changes in the innervation zone of the affected nerve.
The foundation of instrumental diagnostics traditionally consists of such studies as radiography of the spine, Echo-EG, EEG, REG, electromyography, in children of the 1st year of life – neurosonography. They are replaced by more accurate diagnostic methods: computed tomography, MRI, PET of the brain, ultrasound of the vessels of the head, duplex scanning. And, if REG and echoencephalography, as methods of diagnosing nervous diseases, gradually lose their significance, then EMG and EEG remain indispensable. They make it possible to identify functional changes occurring in many that are not diagnosed by neuroimaging methods. In some nervous diseases, diagnostic search requires lumbar puncture, stereotactic biopsy, puncture of the ventricles of the brain, and other diagnostic operations. Since the nervous system is closely interconnected with other organs and systems of the body, for a more accurate diagnosis of nervous diseases, a neurologist (a pediatric neurologist) often needs consultations from other specialists: an ophthalmologist, an endocrinologist, a cardiologist, an orthopedist, etc.
Treatment as a rule, includes a whole range of measures aimed not only at combating the cause of the disease and its etiopathogenetic mechanisms, but also at maximum recovery of the neurological deficit resulting from the disease. For this purpose, physiotherapy, physical therapy, mechanotherapy, reflexology, manual therapy are widely used in the treatment of nervous diseases. Treatment of aneurysms, tumors, intracerebral hematomas, abscesses and cysts of the brain requires surgical intervention. In some cases, surgical treatment is used for epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Brain surgeries and spinal cord interventions are performed by neurosurgeons. They carry out modern surgical treatment of nervous diseases with the help of minimally invasive microsurgical techniques and under the control of neuroimaging. Methods of functional neurosurgery have been developed that are successfully used for torsion dystonia, cerebral palsy, Huntington’s chorea and other nervous diseases accompanied by muscle tone disorders, tremor or hyperkinesis.
You can learn more about the causes, symptoms, methods of diagnosis and treatment of individual nervous diseases in the corresponding section of the Medical Directory of Diseases. The Medic Journal website also provides descriptions of the main hardware studies that help diagnose various nervous diseases.
Intramedullary tumors of the spinal cord are spinal neoplasms that occur in the cerebrospinal substance. Most often these are gliomas, less often vascular tumors, extremely rarely lipomas, teratomas, dermoid, cholesteatomas, schwannomas, etc. They are manifested by pain syndrome, sensory disturbances, paresis, pelvic dysfunction. Intramedullary tumors are most accurately diagnosed according to MRI and angiography of…
Stroke is an acute violation of cerebral circulation, leading to persistent focal brain damage. It may be ischemic or hemorrhagic in nature. Most often, stroke is manifested by sudden weakness in the extremities according to the hemitype, facial asymmetry, disorder of consciousness, speech and vision disorders, dizziness, ataxia. Stroke can be diagnosed based on a…
Insomnia is a pathological condition in which the process of onset and maintenance of sleep is disrupted. Depending on one or another clinical form of insomnia, difficulties in falling asleep (presomnical form), disturbances in the sleep period (intrasomnical) and after waking up (postsomnical form) are observed; there is also a decrease in sleep efficiency, night…
Imbecility is a lack of mental development that has developed in utero or in the first years of life. Denotes oligophrenia of moderate severity. Along with external signs of underdevelopment of intelligence, primitive speech, underdeveloped learning abilities (IQ — 25-50), memory problems, increased unconscious instincts (sexual promiscuity, tendency to overeating) are observed. Thinking is consistent,…
Idiocy is an innate, the most severe form of mental retardation. Pathology begins to manifest itself from the first weeks of a child’s life and is expressed in a sharp lag in psychomotor development. Such patients lack speech and any other forms of mental activity, they are absolutely helpless and cannot master even the most…
Stuttering is convulsive movements of the articulatory and laryngeal muscles that occur more often at the beginning of speech (less often in the middle), as a result of which the patient is forced to linger on any sound (group of sounds). These symptoms are very similar to clonic and tonic seizures. With clonic stuttering, there…
Benign rolandic epilepsy is a genetically determined focal epilepsy associated with age—related hyperexcitability of the cortex of the central temporal region of the brain. Disease is manifested by rare, occurring mainly at night, convulsive seizures in one half of the face, tongue and pharynx; in some cases, generalized seizures. The diagnosis is established on the…
Diffuse axonal injury is a variant of severe traumatic brain injury, the main substrate of which are diffuse breaks or tears of axons. Clinically, from the first minutes of injury, there is a coma with symptoms of a stem lesion, which can go into a vegetative state. The diagnosis is carried out according to the…
Dyscirculatory encephalopathy is a brain lesion that occurs as a result of a chronic slowly progressive violation of cerebral circulation of various etiologies. Disease is manifested by a combination of cognitive impairment with disorders of the motor and emotional spheres. Depending on the severity of these manifestations, pathology is divided into 3 stages. The list…
Myotonic dystrophy Curschmann-Steinert is a hereditary slowly progressive disease based on a defect of myotonin—protein kinase, which leads to the development of myotonia in combination with dystrophic changes in muscle tissue. The disease is manifested by myotonic spasms, atrophic changes in the muscles of the neck, face and distal extremities, decreased intelligence, arrhythmias and endocrine…
