Treatment
Treatment for encephalitis lethargica in the early stages is patient stabilization, which may be very difficult. There is little evidence so far of a consistent effective treatment for the initial stages, though some patients given steroids have seen improvement. Other patients have been less fortunate, and the disease then becomes progressive, with evidence of brain damage similar to Parkinson's disease. Treatment is then symptomatic. Levodopa (-DOPA) and other anti-parkinson drugs often produce dramatic responses. However, in most of the patients who were given -DOPA in the 1960s, the amelioration of the disease was short lived.
The course of encephalitis lethargica varies depending upon complications or accompanying disorders.
The drug Zolpidem, commonly used as a sleeping pill, has been reported to be successful at treating encephalitis lethargica.
Read more about this topic: Encephalitis Lethargica
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“The treatment of the incident of the assault upon the sailors of the Baltimore is so conciliatory and friendly that I am of the opinion that there is a good prospect that the differences growing out of that serious affair can now be adjusted upon terms satisfactory to this Government by the usual methods and without special powers from Congress.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)
“A regular council was held with the Indians, who had come in on their ponies, and speeches were made on both sides through an interpreter, quite in the described mode,—the Indians, as usual, having the advantage in point of truth and earnestness, and therefore of eloquence. The most prominent chief was named Little Crow. They were quite dissatisfied with the white man’s treatment of them, and probably have reason to be so.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts.... The question “Why did you start using narcotics in the first place?” should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)