For all of you medical junkies, here you´ll find everything about rare diseases and cutting edge medical technology and innovation. Hope you enjoy until you get sick about it.

martes, 14 de mayo de 2013
lunes, 13 de mayo de 2013
Strange Diseases

Believe it or not, it is possible to die from a broken heart. The condition, known as Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, stress cardiomyopathy or simply broken heart syndrome, presents itself when there is a sudden temporary weakening of the heart muscle called myocardium. This condition is usually presented under extreme stress situations and it's commonly associated with anxiety feelings, break-ups or the death of a loved one, hence the name. Although the acute symptoms (congestive heart failure and left ventricular dysfunction) are dangerous if not treated, patients usually have a succesful recovery after medicinal treatment.

Finally I'd like to talk about a special mental condition called Capgras Delusion. A person with this disease is unable to recognize a friend, spouse or family member because they are absolutely convinced that they have been replaced with an identical substitute. Although this condition is usually present in paranoid schizophrenics, it can also be found in patients with dementia, brain injuries, neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, hypothyroidism or migraines. Although loads of theories about the causes of this sickness have been proposed (from Freud's psycosexual approach to severe pathological conditions) the main treatment for Capgras delusions is a permanent interaction with the subject to create therapeutically empathy without validating the delusional system or confronting it directly.
lunes, 6 de mayo de 2013
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome

Symptoms:
The malfunction in patients with AIWS occurs in the brain and not in the eyes; they should present physically normal eyes. The main symptom they should present are migraines. The patient also tends to have a distortion on his own body image sensing that parts of his or her body are confusingly changing size and shape. Other possible causes of this disease are the use of hallucinating drugs or infectious mononucleosis. The disease may also present lilliputian hallucinations that consist of size and shape distorted hallucinations. They also may present distortion in depth and perspective, feeling objects are closer or more distant than they really are. Linked to all these symptoms, the patient may also suffer form a lose of the sense of time. Finally, other less common symptoms are loss of limb control and dis-coordination memory loss, lingering touch and sound sensations and emotional experiences.
Treatment:
The treatment for Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is basically attacking the migraines with anticonvulsants, antidepressants, beta and calcium channel blockers and dieting. It, as any other migraine must wear itself out, there is no direct cure for it; the treatment is purely symptomatic. It is not contagious
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