What’s wrong with me: psychological impact of CPM/EPM:
A few days ago I posted regarding how CPM/EPM has impacted my emotional abilities as well as my cognitive abilities. At that time, I didn’t have a lot of information regarding if this is a typical symptom of CPM/EPM.
Now, I have to stress what I’m sure I’ve mentioned previously; CPM/EPM is RARE. Hyponatremia is not rare, but developing CPM/EPM after it does not happen very often.
It is because it is so rare, there is not very much information, especially detailed information or studies that diagnose the symptoms. So, if you approach a doctor to get answers, you might very well be given a blank stare. Let’s face it, if we had heart disease or cancer, we would get more information as to what to expect, but CPM isn’t widely seen by the medical profession, and even more importantly there aren’t long term studies or follow up of these patients. You’ll also find a lot of discrepancy in the research articles that are written.
I’ve been to several doctors who have never seen a patient with it.
What does this mean for us?
Don’t set high expectations for doctors who treat you, and as I’ve said before with CPM/EPM, ANYTHING GOES. NO one can tell you with absolution what is happening to you or things that have changed after you developed CPM/EPM isn’t normal or typical, because they DON’T KNOW. They really don’t.
I hope that over time, more research will be done for us who suffer from it, but in the mean time, I hope you find that my blog provides the most detailed information on what to expect.
SO, here’s what I found:
There is a link to emotional issues after CPM/EPM. There’s also a very solid link to cognitive issues. I’m also still trying to find links to the impulsiveness.
The following two links provide brief descriptions in their abstracts about having behavioral changes as well as cognitive changes. Now, here’s the thing; these articles require you to pay for access. I am citing their links, but I will only be able to post them after I gain access to them when I go to my local university, which is what I recommend if you don’t want to pay for them. Simply write down the name of the article, the publication date, etc and go to your local or major university library to access them, usually for free.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10514953
The following link provides information on the cognitive deficits a person experienced after developing CPM/EPM (but again to access full article requires payment):
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13554799808410619#preview
The following research article gives a fantastic description of how the damage occurs, but I will post that under the information regarding hyponatremia and the CPM section that describes how the damage occurs. The following quotes, I’m including gives an example of why I believe articles are pretty vague, but does give a more detailed account of the cognitive symptoms that we may experience:
A more recent study examined 12 individuals with CPEPM related to a variety of medical causes. In this more diverse population, four patients died in the acute phase, and two were lost to follow-up. The remaining six were reported to have “good motor and cerebellar recovery.” However, all five of the patients who received neuropsychological testing had evidence of subcortical/frontal dysfunction, and most of these (4/5) were unable to return to work.
The next quote also describes another study that was researched:
Almost half (12/25) died either during the acute phase (2) or after hospital discharge (10). One was lost to follow-up. At final follow-up (mean 2.2 years; median: 1 year; range: 0 – 8 years), 29% (7/24) were normal; 17% (4/24) had mild cognitive or extrapyramidal deficits; and 54% (13/24) had a poor outcome (died or were dependent).
To clarify the above study: 2 people died immediately, 10 died after hospital discharge (but it doesn’t say from what); one died but not sure from what; 7 were “normal”, but it doesn’t clarify what that means; and 4 had deficits. Now, if you do the math these numbers don’t add up to 25…so what does that mean? There must be a mistake or error somewhere, and I think that helps to emphasize my point. The research articles on CPM/EPM are vague.
The next quote provides information from this research article on some of the cognitive impairments experienced:
A patient with only EPM (lesions in
the basal ganglia) had severely impaired attention, verbal and visual memory, visuospatial function, frontal
executive function, recognition memory, free recall
memory, and naming, with preservation of other language-related functions.
29
All these deficits are consistent with previous reports in patients with basal ganglia
lesions. In the other case, the patient had CPEPM (lesions in the pons, caudate, lentiform nucleus, thalamus,
and internal capsules).
28
At 1 week, the patient had
prominent deficits in attention and concentration (e.g.,
high distractibility, slow visual scanning), memory (immediate verbal recall and memory for daily events),
visuomotor functioning, and fine motor speed.
The above information really defines what I’ve been experiencing. My lesions were in the basal ganglia, so I have to say it’s pretty accurate in my regards.
The study goes on to explain that there were additional cognitive dysfunctions that occurred after the initial damage occurred and resulted in “pathological crying and laughter at 6 months after symptom onset, all consistent with a brainstem process.”
Doesn’t that sound a bit familiar. I’m not sure exactly what the pathological crying means. I’m guessing they mean it was inappropriate.
THE ABOVE QUOTES COME FROM THIS ARTICLE: http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/data/Journals/NP/4399/jnp00411000369.pdf
It is very insightful, but I recommend breaking it up into sections because it can become a bit overwhelming.
So this is the information that I have found up to this point, but I’m sure there will be further information to come. There’s so much to go through..dud links…search results that don’t have anything to do with what you want, etc. Consider this post, like all of mine, a work in progress.
I hope it helps, and if you find something, message me with the link so I can add it. I REALLY appreciate your feedback. Truly the only way we can find out what is happening with CPM/EPM is through your feedback of what’s happening to you, so LEAVE comments, and details, etc. You’ll be helping other people!!
UPDATED: 04/20/12….Ok, so folks, so I have been trying to find more references to the psychological impacts of CPM/EPM. The following link is in reference to a man who developed CPM/EPM after quitting drinking. They performed an MRI that showed lesions in his brain correlating to CPM. His behavior and symptoms progressed, and he began to develop angry outbursts, etc. They performed another MRI that showed demeylination was spreading further in the basal ganglia and the pons.
Two days after the admission, he showed violent behavior, agitation and irritability, getting angry on the slightest provocation without any mental changes or Parkinson symptoms or aggravation of his dysarthria. At first, we considered his symptoms to be alcohol withdrawal psychosis and started antipsychotics to control him, but his symptoms worsened. We performed MRI again 5 days after he developed psychiatric symptoms. The second MRI showed extended lesions in the bilateral basal ganglia and pons, as compared with the previous MRI.
The previous quote and information comes from: http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/6/647.full
This research article states that damage specifically associated with the basal ganglia areas are documented to cause behavioral and cognitive changes:
Abnormality of the basal ganglia is known to cause various cognitive dysfunctions and abnormal behavior via the involvement of the corticostriatothalamic or cortical–subcortical circuit through the basal ganglia (Carlsson,1988), while the role of pontine pathology for cognitive function and personality remains unclear.
UPDATE: 11/14/12
I have found this great research article that sites long term effects of brain injuries. In subsequent posts, I have decided that is safe to draw correlations between all brain injuries, so the following article describes what may happen psychologically after developing a brain injury. I have found that I have experienced a number of these issues, especially with distancing myself emotionally from people. There seems to be an emotional disconnect on a personal level, but I have the ability to cry over anything I experience regarding my brain injury. I don’t have all the answers for what is happening on a psychological level, but the following article does describe a lot:
http://apt.rcpsych.org/content/5/4/250.full.pdf —Psychiatric Sequelae of Acquired Brain Injury-Ken Barrett, APT 1999, 5:250-258
I am adding this quote from another research article that I found:
A patient with central pontine myelinolysis (CPM) underwent neurological and mental status examination, as well as neuropsychological testing, during the acute stage of the disease. After correction of the hyponatremia, a gross change in his neuropsychiatric status was observed. The patient underwent extensive neurological, psychiatric, and neuropsychological testing during the acute phase of the disease and at follow-up 4 months later. All major neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms present at onset were fully reversible. Neuropsychological examination revealed deficits in the domains of attention and concentration, short-term memory and memory consolidation, visual motor and fine motor speeds, and learning ability. Although improved, neuropsychological testing still revealed remarkable deficits at follow-up. We conclude that neuropsychological deficits can accompany CPM, and that these deficits do not necessarily diminish simultaneously with the radiological or clinical neurological findings but may persist for a longer period of time, or even become permanent. In his recovery the patient started to manifest new neurological symptoms consisting of a mild resting tremor of both hands and slow choreoathetotic movements of the trunk and the head, which we considered to be late neurological sequelae of CPM. The significance of CPM in the differential diagnosis of acute behavioral changes after correction of hyponatremia is stressed, even if correction is achieved slowly and carefully.
This really explains the problems that I’ve experienced, and even mentions that you can have late onset symptoms related to CPM/EPM. The above quote comes from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10514953
Hyponatremia and Central Pontine Myelinolysis 