Emotional
Emotional symptoms are also common and are thought to be both a normal response to having a debilitating disease and the result of damage to specific areas of the central nervous system that generate and control emotions.
Clinical depression is the most common neuropsychiatric condition: lifetime depression prevalence rates of 40–50% and 12 month prevalence rates around 20% have been typically reported for samples of people with MS; these figures are considerably higher than those for the general population or for people with other chronic illnesses. Brain imaging studies have tried to relate depression to lesions in certain regions of the brain have met with variable success. On balance the evidence seems to favour an association with neuropathology in the left anterior temporal/parietal regions.
Other feelings such as anger, anxiety, frustration, and hopelessness also appear frequently and suicide is a very real threat since it results in 15% of deaths in MS sufferers.
Read more about this topic: Multiple Sclerosis Signs And Symptoms
Famous quotes containing the word emotional:
“The worst drugs are as bad as anybody’s told you.... It’s just a dumb trip, which I can’t condemn people if they get into it, because one gets into it for one’s own personal, social, emotional reasons. It’s something to be avoided if one can help it.”
—John Lennon (1940–1980)
“Compared to other parents, remarried parents seem more desirous of their child’s approval, more alert to the child’s emotional state, and more sensitive in their parent-child relations. Perhaps this is the result of heightened empathy for the child’s suffering, perhaps it is a guilt reaction; in either case, it gives the child a potent weapon—the power to disrupt the new household and come between parent and the new spouse.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)
“When men and women across the country reported how happy they felt, researchers found that jugglers were happier than others. By and large, the more roles, the greater the happiness. Parents were happier than nonparents, and workers were happier than nonworkers. Married people were much happier than unmarried people. Married people were generally at the top of the emotional totem pole.”
—Faye J. Crosby (20th century)