Title : New ideas and approaches in treatments for chronic and complex neurological conditions
Abstract:
An initial study involving a random selection of 5 patients who were diagnosed MND positive and who were in at a moderately advanced stage (e.g. not able to walk unassisted, voice impedance and moderate upper limb and discriminative fine motor impairments), was implemented initially out of curiosity and patient desperation requests, to determine if a NeuroPhysics Therapy (NPT) intervention would produce any favourable restorations to lost functions, as historically evidenced when applied to other complex neurological pathologies over a 4 day period. This study was highly sensitive to the often-desperate emotional states of MND patients. To be able to acquire a positive outcome for these patients, there was a need to look at MND through a very different lens. Typically, NPT adopts a ‘Complex Adaptive Systems’ approach to all interventions with high priority given to the deterministic effects any individuals subjective perceptions of their inner and outer environments have on how they psychophysically respond to these environments. Rogue perceptions manifest rouge responses with MND being considered here to be the accumulative rogue response to a long series of rogue percepts. The main culprit being in all 5 patients was long term sustained activation of their sympathetic nervous systems pre their MND diagnosis, with fear, avoidance and anxiety increasing exponentially once these patients had been given a positive MND diagnosis.
Motor neurons are slaves to the sensory system in the first instance – as in first we sense our inner and outer world and then we respond. From these initial conditions, feedback/feedforward ‘recurrent dynamics’ maintain our conscious experience of a ‘non-iterated’ seamless flow of information from one moment to the next within our inner and outer worlds – curtesy of the association cotices. However, within the spectrum of MND cases the conscious experience of planned and initiated movements become random (unpredictable) and iterated from one moment in space time to the next. It is predominantly assumed this is motor neuron pathology, most often based purely upon symptoms and conduction test acuity, whereas long term sensory deprivation; either due to the hypervigilant emotional state of the patient [or] from limited exposure to a stimulating environment and limited activities within complex environments or both, significantly reduces sensory input and randomized atrophy of sensory assemblies would occur which in turn reduces inputs into motor neurons. The envisaged result being randomized motor neuron atrophy.
All patients engaged in a 4-day intensive NPT intervention focused on removing psychophysical restrictions of sensory processing. All patients experienced notable, measurable relaxation of MND symptoms during this 4 day period. This presentation will highlight a selection of these patients during and post NPT, verifying at least with these cases that MND symptoms can be arrested and functions can begin to be restored in very small time scales. There will also be discussion on the critical, more permanent life-threatening psychological effects that a MND diagnosis has on a patient, even in the light of evidence that perhaps the diagnosis was not accurate. This is only a small group of MND patients; however, these positive outcomes do indicate that a qualitative systematic review should take place on what MND is and what it isn’t.
Audience Take Away:
- These outcomes represent a ‘breaking of symmetry’ for MND diagnosis and prognosis bought about by looking at MND through a complex adaptive systems lens and adjusting an approach to therapy accordingly.
- This may encourage members of the audience to review their experiments and research through a similar lens to assist in solving problems that seem unsolvable or that have too many degrees of freedom.
