Tourette Canada describes Tourette Syndrome (TS) as a neurodevelopmental or brain condition. People with Tourettes make involuntary movements and noises — tics. There is a lot of popular mythology and misinformation about Tourette Syndrome, including that the main symptom of Tourette’s is swearing (it’s not), that TS affects intelligence (it doesn’t), and that the mere presence of tics means someone has TS (it doesn’t).
A psychologist in Calgary is available to consult with and support you and your family if you’re affected by TS. We will introduce the causes, symptoms and treatments of TS. If any of this information raises questions or concerns for you or your family, contact a psychologist near you.
What causes Tourette Syndrome?
Researchers have associated Tourette Syndrome with changes to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia. The basal ganglia help to control the movements of the body. Changes in the basal ganglia associated with TS affect the chemicals that carry messages between nerve cells and those nerve cells themselves.
Several genes are involved in TS, a genetic condition. Studies indicate that a person with TS has a five to 15% chance of having a child, brother, sister, or parent who has TS.
What are the Symptoms of Tourette Syndrome?
In the movies, Tourette’s is often portrayed as the “swearing disease” in which every affected person has coprolalia (involuntarily uttering obscenities). Coprolalia is a severe tic that up to 10% of people experiencing TS exhibit. There are several different types of tics, but what is a tic in the first place?
Tourette Canada describes a tic as an involuntary motion or noise that is sudden, nonrhythmic, purposeless, intermittent, repetitive, and unpredictable. They’re categorized as motor or vocal (sometimes called phonic) or simple or complex.
Tics displayed by a person experiencing Tourette Syndrome are involuntary. Some people experiencing Tourette Syndrome can, with exhausting and difficult concentration, control or suppress their tics for short periods. The effort to suppress a tic has been described as trying to hold in a sneeze.
Motor Tics
Simple motor tics affect a single muscle group, including head jerking, blinking, lip-licking, and shrugging one’s shoulders.
Complex motor tics involve more than one muscle group. Complex motor tics include spinning around, jumping, touching objects, echopraxia (imitating someone else’s actions), or copropraxia (inappropriate or taboo behaviours and gestures).
Vocal Tics
Examples of simple vocal tics are humming, sniffing, grunting, throat clearing, and repeatedly repeating the same syllable.
Complex vocal tics can go beyond those simple sounds and include words and phrases or modulations to the person’s pitch and volume. Someone displaying a complex vocal tic may display echolalia (repeating a phrase that has been heard), palilalia (repeating themselves), or swearing or uttering taboo phrases (coprolalia).
How is Tourette Syndrome Treated?
Tics that become problematic can be treated with medications that affect the brain’s dopamine. Those medications include Haloperidol, fluphenazine and pimozide. High blood pressure medications Clonidine and guanfacine are also used to treat tics. Other symptoms of TS — such as anxiety, sadness, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms — can be treated with antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, and Zoloft.
Comprehensive Behavioural Intervention for Tics (CBIT)
Non-pharmacological treatment for TS is a Comprehensive Behavioural Intervention for Tics (CBIT). CBIT combines six therapeutic strategies, sometimes described as “do something else therapy.” CBIT includes:
- Psychoeducation.
- Self-awareness training.
- Relaxation training.
- Establishing a tic hierarchy to allow reverse engineering of individual tics.
- Developing competing responses to the targeted tic through habit reversal techniques.
You can obtain information about CBIT therapy for tics near you by contacting a psychologist in Calgary.
A psychologist in Calgary can help you and your family if you’re experiencing the symptoms of TS. If you have questions about Tourette Syndrome, confusing symptoms or tics, treatment options, diagnostic criteria, or any element of Tourette Syndrome in Calgary, contact a psychologist near you for advice and support.