Ever wondered why some people repetitively wash
themselves or check locks. They may be suffering from a psychiatric disorder
called OCD. What is OCD? OCD is a Psychiatric disorder in which a person,
experiences recurrent repetitive thoughts which are deemed as own, useless and
purposeless by the person which increases a person’s anxiety until they follow
it with a compulsive behavior and subsequent relief from anxiety.
Boys are more commonly affected than girls.
There is no specific identifiable cause but a neurotransmitter
serotonin is implicated in its pathology. Some drugs like anti psychotics can
also cause OCD.
Presenting symptoms of OCD
Majority of people will have recurrent thoughts about
contamination and usually clean their hands and belongings a number of times.
Others will have doubt about the locks will repeatedly check the locks. Other
people will be worried about symmetry, counting, have blasphemous, aggressive
or sexual thoughts repetitively. When these thoughts have significant social
impact in patients daily routine they are termed as OCD. Objectively these
symptoms must disturb daily routine for more than 1 hour/day.
Course and outcome of OCD
Around half patients have a sudden onset. Around 33% of patients
improve a lot in life time, 33% have moderate improvement and the rest 33% have
no improvement.
Treatment of OCD involves
1. Medications such as SSRI’S which include
escitalopram, sertraline, paroxetine, fluvoxamine, fluoxetine and citalopram
are primary drugs used in treatment of OCD. TCA’S such as clomipramine and
imipramine are useful in resistant cases.
2. Behavioral therapies like “exposure andresponse prevention” are
also useful but are tedious.
3. Psychosurgery is useful in very
resistant cases.
4. Newer techniques include r TMS.
Drugs recommended for Childhood OCD by FDA are fluoxetine,
sertraline and fluvoxamine.
VARIOUS SCALES USED TO RATE OCD ARE
YALE BROWN OCD SCALE
MAUDESLY OCD SCALE
LYTONS OCD SCALE
Proper treatment of OCD is must for a better quality of life
Wishing you a very long and healthy life
Dr Hitesh Sharma
MBBS, MD (Psychiatry)
For asking a query or phone/video consultation with me visit- https://www.icliniq.com/hitesh
For asking a query or phone/video consultation with me visit- https://www.icliniq.com/hitesh
