| A 5-year-old boy was brought to my appointment with a delay in neuropsychic development, an autism spectrum disorder. The parent’s request was that the child started encopresis (again). Mom explained that for a year and a half the child had been going to the potty on his own. And then it began again. I would like to note that in the first case it was not encopresis, but an unformed conditioned reflex. But when a child begins to get dirty in panties after a period of cleanliness, encopresis can be suspected.The psychologist at the reception always looks at the client’s facial expression, voice, posture, behavior – and this does not depend on the age of 5 years, 25, 60 years of your client.The child has a mask of suffering on his face, the corners of his lips are lowered.Child’s vocabulary: mom, banana, bye.Well, what kind of diagnostics can we talk about here? The child does not draw, does not speak. In such a situation, body-oriented psychotherapy will always help . After all, as you know: “The soul is an invisible part of the body, but the body is the visible part of the soul” And so the holistic massage session begins. This is a very gentle technique of touching the client’s body (the client lies in clothes), it is done from right to left, the body-oriented psychologist moves from the body to the legs, then again to the body, then to the neck, head.The child lies calmly. The boy likes it. I note for myself: the strongest muscle tension in the pelvic region (block-in the language of body-oriented psychologists). Gradually I go up to the neck – and then there is an opening, the child abruptly throws my arms back – does not allow me to touch the neck and head. I continue to work with the body, start a new circle and again the same reaction to touching the head and neck.A small digression is of great importance.It so happened that I took some interesting courses for psychologists on the issue of hyperactivity in children. On the first day, a doctor, a chiropractor, a rehabilitation therapist, a second and subsequent psychologist spoke, that’s what she, Yasyukova L.A., writes in her article on the issue of hyperactivityThe cause of the disease is not immaturity of the brain structures – it is the cause of behavioral problems. The main cause of the disease (about 90% of cases), that is, the cause of the immaturity of the brain structures, is trauma, damage to the spine (usually obtained during childbirth), as a result of which the vertebral artery is compressed and the full access of oxygen and nutrients to the brain is blocked, thereby inhibiting its maturation and the energetic possibilities of its functioning are limited. The child’s spine is always injured when straightening the wrong presentation of the fetus, entwining the fetus with the umbilical cord, in the case of large head sizes, with a variety of obstetric interventions (extrusion, straightening the shoulders, vacuum extraction, etc.), labor stimulation, fleeting birth, etc. The spine can be injured and in the first years of life. Often this is not reflected in the child’s medical record. With an inadequate blood supply to the brain, the rate of maturation of its substructures slows down and no longer corresponds to age norms, which negatively affects the possibilities of mental development, as a result, an eight-year-old child behaves like a five-year-old. With spinal injuries, the outflow of venous blood is also disrupted, which leads to an increase in intracranial pressure, headaches, which the child periodically complains about. Injuries of certain parts of the spine, in which the processes of the vagus nerve are infringed, lead to such typical childhood problems as enuresis, allergies, visual impairments, innervation of the fingertips, that is, “bad” handwriting, etc. Any drug treatment for an injured spine is not only meaningless, since it does not eliminate the cause of complications in the development of the child, but it is also harmful. All proposed drugs have a variety of negative effects on the growth and functioning of the child’s body (this is reported in the list of possible complications). Medication is aimed at minimizing symptoms but does not address the underlying cause.The first thing to do is straighten the spine and normalize the blood supply to the brain. This requires the qualified help of an osteopath, or a chiropractor, or an orthopedic neuropathologist. The second task is to strengthen the spine in the correct position. To do this, it is necessary to do an appropriate strengthening massage and certain exercises every day for 3-4 months. (We teach children exercises, and show parents how to do massage, and they do it themselves.) If you do not do strengthening massage and exercises every day for 3-4 months, then in a month or even earlier the spine will return to its defective position, behavior and learning will deteriorate, and treatment will have to start over. If the spine defect is not corrected, then sports and massage are harmful, as they fix the spine in an injured state.Naturally, I could not help but tell the boy’s dad about my suspicions why the child throws his arms away from his head and neck. Dad made a decision right away: “We’ll do an X-ray.”This is the conclusion they received: displacement of the atlas, unstable cervical spine, back Bifida, hyperlordosis of the neck.The parents of this boy went through many specialists: pediatricians, neurologists, psychiatrists, osteopaths, they also had a psychological, medical and pedagogical commission, after which he ended up in a correctional kindergarten. But no one thought to check the child’s neck, to prescribe an X-ray of the neck in 4 projections (which I learned about in 1 lecture). The brain cannot develop normally if its blood supply is disturbed, hence the delay in nervous, mental development. Early childhood autism is very well described by Rainer Telle in his book ” Psychiatry with elements of psychotherapy” Here is a small excerpt: Diagnosis and differential diagnosis. In severe cases, the diagnosis is quite simple and is established relatively early (often up to 3 years) on the basis of contact disorders, delayed speech development and characteristic behavior. In milder cases, the diagnosis is difficult. Often, autistic children with the Asperger’s type attract attention only from the beginning of their studies, since their uniqueness in the bosom of the family remains tolerant and compensated. Not all of the characteristic symptoms are found. Then one speaks of autistic symptoms or mental retardation with traits of autism. Similar symptoms. although less typical and pronounced, it can be observed in hospitalized children and in children with other early pathology due to a lack of contacts. Children with severe cognitive weakness, severe motor impairments, or even a defect in interests can simultaneously exhibit autistic behavior, while the defect of interests is not recognized for a long time. The environment also influences the development of the pattern of violations. Questions for everyone who reads the article: Do you think that often in our country, children are x-rayed in 4 projections, if such equipment is not available in state medical institutions?If a patient is being treated, what is more important to deal with the cause of the disease or to treat the symptom?How to diagnose correctly: from general to particular or from particular to particular (for example, the cause of a headache can be fatigue, temperature, blood pressure, sinusitis, etc.) A competent doctor diagnoses by the method of exclusion: he measures temperature, pressure, does blood tests, X-rays.Doctors should be able to analyze, but probably not everyone can learn this. |