| Mental problems can and do occur with multiple sclerosis.
Unfortunately, many, many, people who have multiple sclerosis or who
are currently undergoing medical investigation, have become
hypersensitive to the issue of mental illness and therefore may
be reluctant to seek treatment.
This is usually due to the 'it's all in your head' approach taken
by many doctors when the patient first seeks medical help.
Since the average age of clinical onset of multiple sclerosis is
33 years of age, and the average age of diagnosis 37 years of age, there
is typically, a four year interval during which the process of sensitization
develops.
Suffering from the full physical, emotional and cognitive onslaught
delivered by multiple sclerosis, while being dismissed as having a purely
psychosomatic illness, is not conducive to objectivity by the patient
when the subject of mental illness does arise.
However, the issue remains. Multiple sclerosis does cause
mental illness and psychiatric conditions, other than depression, and
these psychiatric conditions are relatively common.
The incidence of depression in people with multiple sclerosis is
very high at around 50% of patients developing the condition at some
stage of the illness.1
It is, however, incorrect to conclude that depression is simply a patient
reaction to having a disabling, incurable, and difficult-to-predict
neurological disease.2
More serious psychiatric disturbances may also occur, ranging from
affective disorders, mania, personality disturbances and more rarely,
psychosis.3
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