Tourette’s Syndrome (TS) is a chronic neuropsychiatric disorder.  There are no two TS patients with the same set of symptoms that include simple and complex motor and vocal tics.  There are also differences in duration and severity of the tics.  Simple motor tics usually affect only one muscle group and complex motor tics are more abrupt and affect simple movement and coordinated sequences of movement.  Intractable TS patients have many complex motor tics and are found to be harmful to themselves if they are great in severity.

After careful evaluation of TS patients, their outcome of problem severity and resulting impairment, some patients may be candidates for neurosurgical treatment called a bilateral limbic leucotomy.  The surgery entails making lesions in the lower medial quadrants of the frontal lobes in the brain.  One patient showed progress with reduction of symptoms within 2 days of surgery and compulsions disappeared within 6 weeks.  The patient is then no longer a damger to themselves and can live a more normal lifestyle, with much less degree of syndrome symptoms.

With the many neurosurgical advances in the medical world and the new knowledge of the syndrome’s physiology we can see that there are promising outcomes from surgical techniques.  All patients with chronic illnesses need treatment plans with realistic outcomes to meet their basic needs of daily life.  The bilateral limbic leucotomy has now shown that severe Tourette’s symptoms can be alleviated through manipulation of the frontal lobes.  Hopefully this will not be a costly procedure as it evolves to a process performed more often and possibly to help alleviate more minor syndrome patients with further studies.

Works Cited:

http:www.hopskinsmedicine.org/conditions/nervous sytem.html

“The treatment of Guilles de la Tourette syndrome by limbic leucotomy”, M Robertson, M Doran, M Trimble, AJ Lees. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry 1990; 53: 691-694.

Anatomy and Physiology: The Unity of Form and Function, 5th ed: Saladin. McGraw-Hill, New York 2010.