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:
“Masturbation is not only an expression of self-regard: it is also the natural emotional outlet of those who ... have already accepted as inevitable the wide gulf between their real futures and the expectations of their fantasies.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“Most people agree that men have trouble showing hurt, jealousy, and fear but even mothers, whose wider emotional range is often taken for granted, also seem more comfortable with anger than these other “unparentlike” feelings. This is probably because several generations of mothers have now been twelve-step-programmed and pop-psychologized enough to believe that expressing hurt, fear, anxiety, or dependence will create pathological guilt in their kids.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“Friends broaden our horizons. They serve as new models with whom we can identify. They allow us to be ourselves—and accept us that way. They enhance our self-esteem because they think we’re okay, because we matter to them. And because they matter to us—for various reasons, at various levels of intensity—they enrich the quality of our emotional life.”
—Judith Viorst (20th century)