What’s Organic Brain Syndrome?

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Organic brain syndrome is an umbrella term used to refer to cases where people experience cognitive impairment due to physical damage to the brain. This term is widely considered obsolete and is mostly seen in older texts. However, there may be cases where it is still used. One problem with this term is that it is not very accurate and therefore provides very little meaningful information that could be used to develop a treatment plan.

The concept of organic brain syndrome arose in the field of psychiatry when people started separating the causes of different types of conditions involving the brain. Psychological conditions in which no physical changes to the brain could be observed were known as functional disorders, while cases in which the brain was physically damaged were known as organic. Dividing conditions by cause was intended to help narrow down the diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment; a psychologist may not cure a stroke, for example, while a neurosurgeon may not help with an anxiety disorder.

In the case of acute organic brain syndrome, the onset of the condition is sudden. Chronic organic brain syndrome involves persistent changes in cognitive function that are the result of damage to the brain. The changes seen in patients with physical brain changes can be either neurological or psychological in origin. For example, some people who suffer traumatic brain injury experience personality changes in addition to experiencing neurological symptoms such as difficulty walking or talking.

Causes of organic brain syndrome can include trauma, disease, and exposure to neurotoxins. Trauma can cause a variety of types of damage to the brain at the cellular level, and neurology researchers are constantly learning more about the long-term damage that can be caused by trauma. For example, shear forces in the brain can lead to diffuse axonal injury in which neurons are damaged, but the damage doesn’t show up on medical imaging studies because it occurs at a level too small to detect.

The disease includes neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s along with cardiovascular diseases that impair circulation to the brain, strokes, conditions that lead to low oxygen levels in the brain, and so on. Neurotoxins can be ingested accidentally, such as by people injured in industrial accidents, or as a result of recreational drug and alcohol use.

If someone is said to have organic brain syndrome, further tests and evaluations are needed to determine the cause so that an appropriate course of treatment can be developed. Treatment may be able to stop the damage as well as help patients recover from the damage.

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