Best Treatments for Paralysis
Paralysis can happen anywhere in your body when motility stops the action it is destined to do. It can be loss of senses, loss of purposeful movement as associated with strokes, spinal cord injuries, or even constipation leading to impaction or paralytic ileus, for example. It could happen with falls, injuries, loss of myelin sheaths on axons of the nerves due to compression, and even drugs and alcohol. The transmission of the signal is stopped via the faulty nervous system motor transmission to the part that is not working.
Certain people who have paralysis because of a birth defect or sudden injury often cannot feel or move anything in their affected body parts. But people who are paralyzed due to medical conditions like Multiple Sclerosis (MS) might feel tingling or muscle weakness.
Types of Paralysis
Paralysis can affect a person’s breathing, blood flow, organ functionality, speaking or swallowing, sexual responses, or even ability to control the urge to go to the bathroom, depending on where the person is paralyzed and how bad the situation is. It is advisable for patients to hire a nurse service at home to prevent unnecessary complications and help them maintain their overall well-being.
The different types of paralysis are as follows:
Complete paralysis: is when a person cannot move or control their paralyzed muscles. They may also not be able to feel anything in those muscles.
Partial or Incomplete Paralysis: is when the affected person still has some feeling and possibly control over the paralyzed muscles. This is sometimes called paresis.
Localized Paralysis: this affects just one specific area, like hands, feet, face, or vocal cords.
Generalized Paralysis: is more widespread in a person’s body and is grouped by how much your body is affected, depending on where your spinal cord or brain is injured.
- Monoplegia is a type of paralysis in which just one limb is affected.
- Diplegia affects the same area on both sides, like arms, legs, or the sides of the face.
- Hemiplegia is a type that affects only one side of the body and is commonly caused by stroke, which causes brain damage on the affected side.
- Quadriplegia and Tetraplegia are conditions in which all 4 limbs are paralyzed, sometimes with certain organs.
- Locked-in syndrome is the most severe type of paralysis, where a person loses control of every muscle except the ones that move their eyes.
- Paraplegia is paralysis that restricts movement in the lower part of the body, down from the waist.
When your muscles are tight and jerky, you may experience stiff or spastic paralysis, common among cerebral palsy people.
Best Treatment for Paralysis
There is presently no cure for paralysis; however, there are multiple options available regarding extensive care and mobility that could improve patients’ lives with partial paralysis. Also, medical institutions are now providing nurse at home in Bengaluru to assist patients affected with stroke and paralysis with their daily chores.
Medication:
Swellings associated with brain and spinal cord conditions can be treated through surgery. Which helps in reducing the size of the swelling. The patient must continue the medication without interruption as these medications help prevent viral and bacterial infections from occurring.
Respiratory distress is caused by paralysis in quadriplegia and locked-in syndrome. Patients under such conditions can use non-invasive or invasive ventilators. But this should only be done after consulting the concerned physician.
Exercise and Physiotherapy:
Physiotherapy and regular exercise have seen positive results. In patients suffering from partial or complete paralysis either in the hands or legs. In many cases, with physiotherapy at home and regular exercise, patients have successfully recovered motor functions and sensations for at least one of the two affected limbs.
Mobility:
Patients with partial paralysis in the legs with good upper body strength can use manual wheelchairs to commute short distances. While those with less upper body strength can use electric wheelchairs.
Cars can also be fitted to suit the needs of paralyzed patients. The brake and accelerator pedals can be replaced with levers. While the steering wheel can be customized so it can be operated with a wrist instead of fingers.
Communication:
Patients suffering from quadriplegia can trust and count on voice-command-based systems to reduce AC temperature, change TV channels, switch lights on and off, and use audio units or mobile phones.
Patients suffering from locked-in syndrome. Can avail themselves of specially adapted computers to create small sentences to improve their form of communication.