Imbecility - Symptoms, Treatment, Forms, Stages, Diagnosis

2024 Author: Rachel Wainwright | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 07:39

Imbecility

The content of the article:

1. Causes and risk factors
2. Forms of the disease
3. Symptoms
4. Diagnostics
5. Treatment
6. Possible complications and consequences
7. Forecast
8. Prevention

Imbecility (from the Latin imbecillus - "weak", "insignificant") is the average severity of mental underdevelopment (mental retardation, dementia or oligophrenia), which is a consequence of the biological failure of the structures of the brain, in which there is a delay in mental development and the formation of intelligence suffers, emotional and volitional spheres, behavioral reactions, speech. Full-fledged independent social adaptation in this case is impossible.

Oligophrenia occurs in about 1–2.5% of the population

The disease can either develop in the first years of life (organic brain damage before the age of 3 years), or be congenital.

The severity of the condition is determined by the intensity of the negative impact, the time of acquiring imbecility (the younger the child's age, exposed to damaging factors, the deeper the developed mental defect). The severity of intellectual disability in patients with imbecility is determined using standard diagnostic tests IQ and varies within 35–49.

The main difference between imbecility and acquired dementia (dementia) is the lack of progression of existing disorders; often the intensity of painful manifestations can be corrected by reducing their severity.

Synonyms: moderate mental retardation, oligophrenia of moderate severity.

Causes and risk factors

Many different factors can lead to the development of imbecility, which influenced both the reproductive cells of the parents before fertilization or the fetus during pregnancy, and the child during early childhood.

Endogenous (internal) causes that can lead to imbecility:

• genetic mutations;
• hereditary or acquired metabolic diseases (diabetes mellitus, phenylketonuria, Gaucher disease, etc.);
• the age of the parents (mainly the mother) is over 40-45 years old;
• severe chronic diseases of the mother;
• hormonal disorders leading to the overripening of germ cells; and etc.

Causes that have a damaging effect on the fetus during pregnancy:

• ionizing radiation;
• malnutrition (hypovitaminosis, protein starvation);
• intrauterine infections of the fetus as a result of acute viral infections or chronic infectious diseases of the genitourinary system suffered by the mother (especially in the first trimester);
• ingestion of salts of heavy metals, pesticides, aggressive chemical compounds into the mother's body;
• alcohol intake, smoking during pregnancy;
• chronic neuro-emotional stress;
• acute stress;
• the use of certain drugs, narcotic and other prohibited substances;
• mechanical traumatic effects.

Smoking and drinking alcohol during pregnancy can lead to imbecility in the baby

Exogenous (external, acquired) causes of imbecility:

• complications in childbirth and the postnatal period;
• mechanical trauma to the brain;
• acute disorders of cerebral circulation;
• micro- and hydrocephalus;
• inadequate diet of the child (lack of iodine and other trace elements, vitamins);
• negative psychosocial influences in the first years of life (social deprivation, alcoholism or drug addiction of parents, living outside the human environment, dementia of parents, mother's refusal to contact the child, etc.).

The etiology of the disease can be reliably established in no more than 35-40% of cases.

Forms of the disease

Depending on the time of the onset of the disease, 2 forms of imbecility are distinguished:

• congenital;
• acquired.

Symptoms

Despite the lack of abstract thinking and the inability to generalize, formulate concepts, patients can acquire and sufficiently develop self-service skills, carry out primitive labor activities.

To develop social skills, these patients need constant care and supervision; they are practically unable to master even the simplest purposeful everyday actions on their own.

The range of painful manifestations with imbecility is quite wide; it consists of peculiar changes in thinking, memory, speech, and behavior. It:

• distraction of attention;
• inability to concentrate on a specific issue, easy distraction;
• small amount of memory;
• less developed short-term memorization than long-term, frequently occurring distortions of events recorded in memory;
• violations of logical and mechanical memory;
• extremely small stock of ideas and data about the surrounding world;
• inability to manipulate abstract concepts, to understand their essence ("beauty of nature", "wisdom of generations", etc.);
• lack of the ability to analyze, compare, draw conclusions (the inability to coherently retell what was heard, to arrange the simplest data in a certain sequence);
• undeveloped speech, practically without secondary members of sentences, consisting mainly of subjects and predicates;
• limited active vocabulary (usually no more than a few hundred words);
• the prevalence of understanding of gestures, intonations, facial expressions over understanding the meaning of what was said (the child satisfactorily recognizes the message of intonation and gestures, not grasping the meaning of the spoken phrase as a whole);
• tongue-tied speech, lack of speech modulations, distortion of the structure of many words, significant difficulties in constructing sentences from several words;
• echolalia (repetition of words or parts of phrases heard in someone else's speech);
• inaccuracy, inconsistency, sloppiness, as a result - inability to effectively self-care;
• egocentric orientation;
• high level of suggestibility, lack of critical comprehension of information;
• limited range of interests (food, favorite activities, etc.);
• disinhibited sexual behavior;
• emotional lability, excessive sensitivity, imbalance;
• moral immaturity (lack of empathy, sympathy, conscience, sense of duty).

Imbecility is characterized by the absence of abstract thinking and the inability to formulate concepts

In addition to disturbances in the functioning of the mental sphere, children with imbecility have deviations in physical development: the child sits up late, gets up and starts walking, crawls poorly, is not stable enough; unsteadiness of gait is often noted. The formation of speech skills is also delayed.

The training of imbeciles is difficult, it is carried out in the format of correctional educational organizations. From the school curriculum, with full pedagogical support, a sick child can master the simplest counting, alphabet, reading small texts by syllables, memorizing individual phrases.

Diagnostics

With screening ultrasound studies, genetic counseling during pregnancy, with a high degree of probability, some chromosomal diseases of the fetus are diagnosed in which imbecility develops (for example, Down's syndrome). If oligophrenia is not a symptom of any disease, but manifests itself in isolation, laboratory and instrumental research methods that can reliably confirm or deny its presence during this period do not exist.

Instrumental diagnostic methods, such as magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography, ultrasound of the brain structures of a newborn, are used to identify various pathological processes (tumors, thrombosis, hemorrhages, trauma) that can cause mental retardation. Nevertheless, even in the presence of a pathological substrate, intellectual defects may be absent, just as the presence of imbecility does not necessarily imply the presence of visible pathological processes.

A number of studies can confirm the presence of imbecility in a child, including an IQ test

Methods for objectively confirming the presence of imbecility are:

• testing to determine the level of intelligence - IQ in the range from 35 to 49;
• Wechsler's scale - less than 55 points;
• psychotherapist consultation.

Treatment

There are no effective methods of medical or instrumental treatment of imbecility. Partial correction of intellectual defects, instilling self-service skills, teaching reading, counting and the simplest labor manipulations are possible only under the condition of constant intensive psychological and pedagogical support.

If necessary (on demand), the following drugs are prescribed:

• psychostimulants;
• antipsychotics;
• tranquilizers;
• sedatives;
• anticonvulsants; etc.

Possible complications and consequences

In the absence of care and guardianship, imbeciles are socially maladjusted.

Due to instinctive behavior, the severity of elementary physiological needs, suggestibility and inability to critically comprehend information, patients often become accomplices or victims of criminal excesses.

Forecast

The prognosis for recovery is unfavorable, the disease is lifelong. Some positive dynamics (social and labor adaptation, education at the level of primary grades of a correctional school) is possible only with constant monitoring.

Prevention

Prevention of imbecility:

• avoiding exposure to aggressive factors on the mother and fetus during pregnancy;
• timely genetic counseling at a high risk of having a child with oligophrenia (mature age of parents, burdened hereditary history, chromosomal diseases in children from previous pregnancies);
• timely detection of pathologies in a newborn (consultation of specialists) in order to start rehabilitation measures as soon as possible in case of confirmation of the diagnosis;
• full-fledged intellectual development of a child in the first years of life;
• a balanced diet for the mother (during pregnancy) and the newborn.

Olesya Smolnyakova Therapy, clinical pharmacology and pharmacotherapy About the author

Education: higher, 2004 (GOU VPO "Kursk State Medical University"), specialty "General Medicine", qualification "Doctor". 2008-2012 - Postgraduate student of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, KSMU, Candidate of Medical Sciences (2013, specialty "Pharmacology, Clinical Pharmacology"). 2014-2015 - professional retraining, specialty "Management in education", FSBEI HPE "KSU".

The information is generalized and provided for informational purposes only. At the first sign of illness, see your doctor. Self-medication is hazardous to health!