Tarun Kumar
St. Josephs Hospital, SUNY Upstate University, USA
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Neurol Neurophysiol
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the one of the most common immune-mediated, inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the brain and spinal cord. MS commonly manifests with sensory symptoms in limbs or face, unilateral visual loss, acute or subacute motor weakness, diplopia, and gait disturbance. Multiple sclerosis is frequently associated with psychiatric symptoms. 50% or more of the patients with MS have symptoms of affective disorder or cognitive decline. Smaller proportion of these individuals develop psychotic symptoms during the course of the disease. Studies done in past have reported presence of depressive symptoms (79%), agitation (40%), anxiety (37%), irritability (35%), apathy (20%), euphoria (13%), disinhibition (13%), hallucinations (10%), aberrant motor behavior (9%), and delusions (7%) and the risk to develop psychiatric symptoms increases with age. Various studies have found that the occurrence of psychotic symptoms is related with lesion (demyelination) size, location and quantity of lesions. Speaker is presenting a case of 56 year old female with diagnosis of MS who presented with delusions of paranoia and delusions of parasitosis (sometimes called as delusional infestation) and how her symptoms correlated with the progression of MS.
Kumar received his M.B.B.S (equivalent of M.D in USA) from Kastruba Medical College, Mangalore, Manipal University in India. He did his residency in Psychiatry from Mount Sinai School of Medicine- Elmhurst Hospital in NY after which he did a Child & Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship from SUNY Upstate University, Syracuse, NY and Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship from RUTGERS University, NJ. Dr. Kumar has published numerous articles in National and International Journals. He is also on editorial board for many renowned psychiatry journals. He is currently working as attending Psychiatrist in Psychiatry Emergency Room at St. Joseph Hospital in Syracuse, NY and also serves as voluntary faculty in Department of Psychiatry at SUNY Upstate University.
E-mail: drtarundhingra@gmail.com
