Does having MS affect thought process? Can it cause confusion, short term or long term memory loss?

Question

Also, can MS change your personality because of the frustration of the illness or the illness itself? The person I care for is very rude and has always had a historianic personality. So I don't know if it is the disease, or just her, or maybe the pain medication, hydrocodone. I know others that have this disease and are not at all unpleasant.

Answer 1

The neurological symptoms of MS are the result of demylination of neurons in the brain and spinal cord. Healthy neurons are covered in what's called a myolin sheath, which acts as insulation, protecting the neuron from stray signals in the external environment and allowing signals to travel quickly along the nerve. Stripping neurons of their myolin sheaths is very much like stripping a wire of it's insultation. Demylinated neurons are not able to effecitvely transmit signals, and as such are effectively dead.

MS can target neurons in any part of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), so it's symptoms may vary greatly among patients. If regions of the brain involved in memory formation are effected, it could certainly cause memory loss. Depending what regions were effected, it could also conceivably cause confusion, particularly in the later stages as the brain damage becomes more significant. My guess would be that it might cause transitory confusion for a short time after new damage occurs (i.e. during a flare-up), and possibly more lasting dementia-like confusion in advanced cases where extensive brain damage has already occured.

Certainly brain damage can result in personality chances, so it is possible that the rudeness could be a result of the disease. It could also be an indirect result of the disease. Having a degenerative neurological condition is stressful, and rudeness could be her response to stress. However, if she's always been like this, it's just her personality. MS wouldn't have effected her until adulthood, so it's not the sort of thing where her behavior significantly before the onset of symptoms can really be attributed to the disease. Not everyone who is both sick and rude is rude because they're sick. Mean people get sick too sometimes.

Answer 2

I can't say for certain, but I work with two women with the disease, having been diagnosed about five years apart. One of them was diagnosed several years ago, and her physical deterioration is obvious, though she still exhibits the same personality. I would lean toward no, unless she has had the disease for more than 10 years or so. Perhaps her demeanor is the result of emotional frustration due to her inability to care for herself. You also say she has had personality problems in the past, and they are unlikely to have improved in the face of serious incapacity.

Answer 3

My brother and my daughter both had displayed a problem with anger control and relationship problems many months before experiencing their first exacerbation. Can a person have these indicators while MS is "dormant" before diagnosis?

Answer 4

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Answer 5

its in the mind.what you think u will become hat.if u carry feeling and imagination of illness then u will become sick.its all in thing styl.if u believe u are sick then u will be