MENTALLY HANDICAPPED

Mental handicap is an inability to think and act properly because of the blocking of thinking power due to mental conflict and lack of intellectual maturation.

There are three main types of mental handicap:

Mental retardation

Learning Disabilities

Mental disorders

 

Mental retardation is classified as

Cretinism: is a severe (congenital) thyroid deficiency during childhood and leads to physical and mental deficiency. Cretins exhibit dwarfism because the skeleton fails to grow and mature.

Down syndrome: is an inherited defect due to an extra copy of chromosome 21. Such individuals usually have 47 chromosomes instead of the normal 46

Hydrocephalus: is abnormal accumulation of fluid in the brain of a baby. In time the fluid build up compresses and damages the delicate tissues of the nerveous system and causes mental retardation

Microcephalus: is when the individual displays an abnormally small head

Causes: Hereditary factors, inefficient functioning of thyroid glands, biochemical defects, malnutrition, intake of harmful drugs

Rehabilitation is possible for trainable and mild retardation. There are special education schools that provide the necessary facilities to enable them gain basic education.

 

Learning Disabilities

This type of mental handicap shows symptoms of mental retardation. The difference is that of intelligence. Learning disables are of normal intelligence but are unable to learn because of some neural deficiencies. They are slow learners and require special education facilities. The most common type of learning disability is dyslexia

Dyslexia: is an impairment of the brains ability to translate images received from the eyes into understandable language. It causes a difficulty in processing words and symbols. Letters in words seem reversed or upside down. For e.g. ‘dog’ becomes ‘god’. Dyslexics frequently reread portions of paragraphs or skip words and change the order of letters in a word.

The exact cause of dyslexia is unknown. PET scans show that in persons suffering from dyslexia the left side of the brain is more active than the right.

 

Mental disorder

Mental disorder is a maladjustment because of malfunctioning of thinking.

Many individuals suffer from emotional, behavioral and personality disorders. These disorders cause mental handicap and malfunction

Mental disorders are of two types:

Psychosis: Persons lose sense of reality. They think from only their own point of view.

e.g. schizophrenia is a serious disorder. Individuals have continues delusions and hallucinations

Neurosis: is a mild mental disorder which causes malfunctioning of thinking. For e.g. split personality.

The causes of this disorder are hereditary factors and environmental factors.

It is difficult to treat psychosis. Medication and psychotherapy help treat neurosis. However treatment depends upon the individual and his / her acceptance of the need to be treated.

It is important to understand and be patient with people suffering from these disorders.