Understanding Nervous System Disorders: Causes, Types & Treatments

Your nervous system is a complicated, intricately-designed system that coordinates and regulates your brain, spinal cord, senses, and sensory receptors in your joints, muscles and skin. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, this sophisticated system is vulnerable to a number of complex disorders, some more common than others.

Types

• Nervous system disorders fall into five categories: Infections (polio, meningitis), vascular (stroke, brain hemorrhage), structural (injury, Bell's palsy), degenerative (multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease) and functional (headache, epilepsy).

Causes

• A disorder of the nervous system can occur for a variety of reasons. Your nervous system can be damaged by tumors, trauma, infection, structural defects, degeneration or disrupted blood flow.

Symptoms

• Individuals experience illness and symptoms in varied ways. However, common symptoms of nervous system disorders include chronic or acute headache, numbness, tingling, loss of coordination, muscle weakness or rigidity, sudden blindness, tremors, seizures, memory loss and radiating back pain.

Diagnosis

• Diagnosis of a nervous system disorder is complex. Diagnostic tests include an electroencephalogram (EEG), an electromyogram (EMG), computer assisted tomography (CAT) scan, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and a cerebral spinal fluid analysis (spinal tap).

Treatment

• Treatment depends on the specific diagnosis. Common treatments for patients with a nervous system disorder include drug therapy, surgery, speech or physical therapy, nutritional and psychological counseling, cognitive exercises and social skills training.

Famous Ties

• Some famous people with nervous system disorders include Vincent Van Gogh, Stephen Hawking, Budd Abbott, Michelangelo, Muhammad Ali, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jack Nicklaus, Ronald Reagan and Annette Funicello.