If a person repeats the same action several times, then this is a disorder of the psyche, the subconscious. Read more in the article.
There are many different nervous disorders. We don’t even think that we are performing certain unusual actions, and this may indicate the beginning of the development of a phobia. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is intrusive thoughts, phrases, memories, etc.
Read another article on our website on the topic: “Personal alexithymia - myth or reality . You will find this concept in simple words, problems from a scientific point of view, as well as features, reasons, how to treat.
From this article you will learn the signs of which disease when a person repeats the same action several times. Also learn to help yourself or others with OCD. Read on.
Obsessions in illness of people who repeat the same action several times
Patients with OCD are constantly haunted by intrusive, unpleasant thoughts or obsessions that make the person irritable. Absolutely any event can cause these thoughts:
- Stranger's cough
- Man standing close
- Closed space
- Insects
- Touching a shared object
But most often, OCD begin in a public place with a large crowd of people, since there are many provoking factors there. The patient can focus his attention on any of them.
Imitation is a form of flattery
Let’s say your close friend overuses the phrase “that’s it.” It sounds in almost every sentence. Everything would be fine, but one day someone points out to you that you also use this phrase, and so often that it begins to “harm the ears of some.” You understand that the filler word was borrowed from a friend, but you didn’t want that. So why did this happen?
According to Dr. O'Garro-Mura, when we communicate with someone for a very long time or often, we care more about their well-being than about our own. As a result, we develop a weak dependence and a desire to please this person. Our subconscious believes that by copying some speech features we will become more dear to him, that we will have a special and unbreakable connection with him.
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Compulsions in OCD
To combat obsessions with OCD, the patient takes actions called compulsions. Thanks to such actions, a person tries to get rid of obsessions and feel less anxious. For example, constantly washing your hands, taking a shower, checking whether the appliances are unplugged, whether the taps in the house are turned off, the door is closed, repeating the behavior a certain number of times.
Sometimes, to relieve this anxiety, the patient needs to repeat the actions several times. For example, turn off the lights three times or turn off the valves in the bathroom so that obsessive thoughts recede. This is what happens, they go away, temporary relief comes, but soon it disappears. These are thoughts that interfere with life and affect a person’s behavior.
What are the causes of a disease in which people repeat the same action several times?
People who repeat the same action several times often with high intelligence.
To cure any disease, you need to know why it occurred, that is, the cause. The following may play a role in the development of OCD :
- Genetic predisposition, OCD is inherited.
- Constant stress is the most common cause of OCD.
- Lack of the hormone of happiness and good mood – serotonin.
- Life shocks that force you to radically change your lifestyle.
- Inflated demands on oneself, perfectionism and pedantry.
- Growing up in a family where parents demand the achievement of certain high standards of behavior.
For many people, OCD is not the only mental illness. It can occur together with the following pathologies:
- Bipolar or depressive disorder - 63%
- Anxiety disorder – 76%
- Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder 20-30%
About half of OCD think about suicide, and 1/4 of them attempt suicide. The risk that a person wants to do something to himself increases if he also has depression.
Prevention of age-related brain disorders
Currently, there are no methods that can 100% protect a person from developing Alzheimer's disease. However, there are measures that can be used to delay the onset of the disease in people predisposed to the disease. These include:
- Physical activity. An active lifestyle promotes good blood circulation, which provides the brain with sufficient oxygen. In addition, good blood circulation helps to increase the thickness of the cerebral cortex.
- Proper nutrition. A deficiency of certain microelements accelerates the wear and tear of the nervous system, so proper nutrition helps protect neurons from premature death. A good diet, rich in nutrients, micro- and macroelements, various acids, improves the functioning of blood vessels.
- Brainwork. Memorizing texts by heart, reading books, solving puzzles, crossword puzzles - all these exercises develop the functioning of the brain and slow down the aging process. It has been scientifically proven that people who engage in intellectual work all their lives suffer from dementia much less often than their peers who neglect reading.
- Hormone replacement therapy. One of the causes of dementia in women is hormone deficiency, so hormone replacement therapy is an opportunity to prevent various disorders, ranging from osteoporosis to Alzheimer's disease.
- Controlling cholesterol levels in the blood. This helps improve vascular function and prevent atherosclerosis, one of the common causes of thinking disorders in older people.
The course of the disease when a person repeats the same action several times
Unfortunately, complete cure is very difficult to achieve, but long-term stabilization of the condition is possible. It also depends on the severity of the disease.
- In mild forms of OCD, it can be treated at home and quite successfully; symptoms may return within 1-5 years .
- More severe forms of OCD , for example, phobias of sharp objects, infections, pollution, frequent rituals, on the contrary, may be resistant to treatment, and there may be a tendency to relapse.
If the dynamics of treatment are negative, this indicates a complication of the clinical picture of the disease as a whole.
How to stop doing the same thing over and over again if you have OCD: expert advice
A specialist knows how to stop doing the same thing.
When you have OCD, there is a cycle:
- An obsessive thought arises
- Increased nervousness, anxiety and fear
- Compulsion for relief
- Short-term relief
- Feelings of guilt, inferiority
And so on in a circle. To stop doing the same action, you need to do the following:
- Don't let this cycle progress.
- That is, you need to eradicate the cause at the first points.
- Try to work through your thoughts alone or with a specialist.
Here are some more expert tips:
- If obsessive thoughts arise, do not rush to drive them away, but on the contrary, you can write them down on a piece of paper or a voice recorder, and then re-read or listen to them. Do this regularly, 30 minutes daily. This way you can work through these thoughts, understand the reason for their occurrence and fight it. Don't give in to compulsions.
- If you have anxiety, alcohol will only make it worse. It dulls consciousness, a person relaxes, but the problem remains, unprocessed thoughts accumulate like a snowball. If you constantly drink alcohol, in addition to OCD, you can also develop alcohol addiction. The two diseases are twice as difficult to cure.
- Find a mentor in the form of an experienced psychologist, psychotherapist or psychiatrist.
A specialist will definitely help or guide you along the right path, because OCD is a fairly common disease; experienced specialists have encountered this diagnosis more than once.
What is echolalia?
Echolalia is a term used to describe a situation where a child repeats or imitates the speech of another person. For example, if you ask him “Do you want a cookie?” he says “cookies” and not “yes, I want it.” There is also so-called “delayed echolalia,” when a child repeats something that he heard once, not necessarily just now. For example, he can repeat lines from his favorite movie, even if it is not currently on TV.
Is echolalia normal?
In short: sometimes
Echolalia - repeating what you hear - is a normal part of speech development. Children who are learning to speak constantly repeat after others. If I ask my one-year-old son if he wants to go swimming, his immediate response is “kupaaaa” (he doesn’t quite understand endings). He cannot yet say “yes”, but simply repeats the last word in the question. Children learn to speak by repeating what they hear around them. Over time, they learn to construct their own statements and you can see how echo reactions arise less and less and the need for them decreases.
However, some children do not outgrow echolalia. They continue to mostly repeat what other people say and rarely say anything on their own. Many children say nothing at all, except for lines from films or TV shows they have watched previously. This form of echolalia indicates that the child’s speech development is impaired and for some reason it is difficult for him to learn to speak.
When should echolalia stop? Children aged 1-2 years should repeat a lot and often after those around them. This is part of the learning process. However, by age two they should also be able to speak on their own. Children may continue to repeat after you and use echolalia when asked a difficult question or given instructions, but they also need to do a lot of talking on their own. A two-year-old child should not communicate only by repeating after adults.
By age three, echolalia should appear only occasionally. 3-year-olds must independently construct simple sentences in the process of communication. Echolalia may occasionally occur here and there, but the bulk of speech should consist of independent statements.
Delayed echolalia (for example, quoting movies and TV shows) is characteristic of the speech of many children, but a situation where a child communicates primarily through quotations can become a problem. Your child can quote movies and cartoons, acting out their favorite episodes. This is fine! However, if he is “stuck” on one episode and endlessly repeats the same phrase, this is a problem.
There is nothing wrong if a child is EXTREMELY impressed by a new film or program, and can only talk about it for some time, but over time, when the novelty of the sensation wears off, this topic should appear less and less often. For example, many little girls are now crazy about the song “Let it go” from the cartoon “Frozen” and repeat the words all the time, but this does not mean that they have any problems with speech. However, if a child constantly quotes something, but otherwise his speech remains very poor, there is clearly something wrong with his language development.
How to work with echolalia
Dealing with echolalia is not as easy as it seems. Mainly because it has many different functions. And in order to understand how to solve this problem, first of all you need to understand why the child uses echolalia. In a situation where he repeats after you because he doesn’t know how to say it correctly, you will work differently than in a situation where he just likes to quote a familiar movie over and over again. For this reason, I strongly insist that echolalia be treated by a licensed speech therapist who can understand exactly what it is used for. As mentioned, below you will find several strategies that can help reduce echolalia, either as a process or in combination with therapeutic intervention. When echolalia is a consequence of delayed speech development
Most often, I see echolalia in a child in situations where he has a delay in speech development and he simply does not know what or how to say. My one-year-old baby repeats after me for the same reason - his speech is not developed enough. For a one-year-old child this is not a problem, but if the child is older, he will obviously need the help of a speech therapist.
In such a situation, I usually do not work specifically with echolalia, but try to improve speech development in general. I analyze in which areas of the child’s speech development there is a delay and try to improve the situation. For example, if the child does not have the necessary skills to ask, answer a question, etc. my work will be aimed primarily at building these skills. If a child answers questions using echolalia, I will teach him to answer questions. In short, I will work on all areas in which the child feels insecure, and hope that this will help reduce echolalia. If not, after all the “lagging” skills have been worked out, we will work on echolalia in a more targeted manner.
If a child uses echolalia as a request
Has a child ever told you “hug” or “do you want to be held”? Probably in this case, he wanted you to hug him, or take him in your arms, but instead of asking, he repeated what he heard from others in a suitable situation (“Do you want to hug you?”, “Do you want to be held?”)
If you are working with a child with delayed echolalia who repeats sentences or entire phrases after you, you can model for him the correct form of response to repeat. For example, if a child comes up to you and says “hug,” you can say “hug” and help him repeat what you said.
After you have done this procedure several times in a row, you can begin to respond to what your child says literally so that he understands the true meaning of what he is saying. For example, if he asks you “do you want cookies,” you can answer “I don’t want cookies, but you probably want them, ask.” This will help the child understand that what he says does not always carry the same meaning that he puts into the spoken phrase.
When a child answers questions using echolalia
The most common situation is when a child uses echolalia when answering questions. This problem usually occurs because the child doesn't really know what to answer, but it's very difficult to teach him to answer questions if all he does is repeat the last words in your sentence. Here's what I do (remember that each step may require many weeks of training; you won't be able to solve the problem in one session).
- Choose one type of question (such as “do you want this?” or “what is this”) to work on first.
- and immediately say a one-word answer (without pausing). It should sound something like “You want this.” Ideally, the child will repeat only the last word (yes). If not, help him repeat the answer after you. Continue training until the child learns to answer such questions on a regular basis.
- again, but now say only the first sound of the desired answer, something like this: “Do you want it?” ha...” Help your child answer “I want” by continuing after you. If it takes you a couple of minutes to answer, that's okay, but hold out the first sound until the child starts repeating it. Continue until the child begins to respond, picking up the first sound of the answer after you.
- Ask the question again, but this time simply articulate the first sound of the answer, do not say it out loud. You just have to move your lips as if you want to say it. Draw your child's attention to your mouth using a pointing gesture so that he notices that you are starting to speak. Help your child say the word he needs after you articulate his first sound. Continue doing the same, but gradually reduce the articulation until the child learns to respond independently.
Having mastered the independent answer to one type of question, switch to the next and continue until you have mastered a sufficient number of questions and answers so that they arise spontaneously, without the help of echolalia.
When your child repeats your praise
My favorite because it's so cute. Such echolalia sounds something like this:
Therapist: Kevin, what does the dog say?
Kevin: Woof, woof...good job Kevin!
And at that moment you realize, “Damn, I say “good job Kevin” every time he gives the right answer.” But no matter how nice it may be, such an answer is not very functional and should be removed as soon as possible. The first thing to do is to stop saying anything that the child might associate with the consequences of answering correctly. Instead, repeat the correct answer, pause, and then praise. It might look like this
Therapist: Kevin, what does the dog say?
Kevin: Woof, woof...good job Kevin!
Therapist: Woof-woof! The dog says “Woof-woof”…. You are right.
If this doesn't solve the problem after a while, go back a few steps to answering the questions and use a similar hint system. For example, after the question “how does the dog say - woof-woof”, try to “screw in” woof-woof again after he answers, but before he says “clever Kevin.” It may take some time until your child gets used to not saying the whole phrase, but keep trying and sooner or later the unnecessary “tail” will disappear.
When echolalia is self-stimulation
Some children use echolalia because they enjoy it. Through repetition, they give themselves the stimulation they need, which feels good. Some children swing or wave their arms for the same purpose. In short, this behavior is called stimming. Echolalia can also be a form of stimming.
I often see this behavior in children who are under stress; familiar and familiar phrases help them calm down. If the world around becomes unpredictable and dangerous, the child clings to something permanent - for example, he remembers the script of his favorite cartoon and repeats it. This helps you come to your senses, because a cartoon is something unchanging, regardless of the situation it will sound the same.
Children may turn to echolalia if they are bored or what is happening does not attract their attention. In this case, they plunge into their inner world, where the Frozen verses play non-stop and they can endlessly “press” the repeat button to be entertained.
Remember that such an activity gives the child a lot of pleasure and there is nothing wrong with it. A child should have some time during the day to have fun with echolalia, just as you would probably allow a child who likes active games to play basketball in the yard during his free time.
However, there are certainly times when such echolalia would be inappropriate: in the classroom during a lesson, in the library or in church. It would be unfair to deny your child access to these areas because of echolalia, so you need to work to keep it under control.
The key to stopping echolalia, which is used as self-stimulation, is to understand why it occurs. If a child is stressed, see if there is another way to help him calm down. You can read him a social story about what's going on around him, or teach him quieter ways to calm himself.
If a child is bored or not included in what is happening, you can help him become involved. For example, if in class he endlessly repeats quotes from cartoons, the tutor sitting next to him can remind him from time to time that he needs to participate in the lesson. Or the teacher can ask the child questions and give tasks more often to keep his attention. A small fidget will also help the child concentrate better on the teacher.
If a child does not understand that he is using echolalia, but continues to do so out of habit, rules should be introduced regarding when and where he can and cannot speak. Then, during the lesson, the teacher will only need to gently remind the child that speaking during “silent” times is prohibited. Properly presented rules that everyone follows will help the child stay on course.
Prognosis for OCD disease
When treating OCD, in 2/3 of cases the disease begins to develop positively within a year. Experts give good forecasts. If the disease progresses for more than a year, then dynamics will be observed, that is, there will be both exacerbations and long periods of improvement in health. If the disease is not fully treated, there is constant stress in the patient’s life – there is no need to think about positive dynamics. Working with consciousness is a very difficult process in which you need to make every effort to achieve remission of the disease.
Dementia therapy
If the cause of the thought disorder is Alzheimer's disease, the patient is prescribed a number of medications that slow down the progression of the disorder. These are drugs that improve blood circulation in the brain, cholinesterase inhibitors, and NMDA receptor antagonists. It is impossible to cure a patient suffering from such a disorder.
Today, medicine can only alleviate symptoms and prolong the patient’s life. Unfortunately, today people experience Alzheimer's disease at a fairly young age.
Vascular dementia is treated with vasodilators, antiplatelet and anticoagulants, and antihypertensive drugs.
Pick's disease is corrected with antipsychotics; Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is combated by resorting to symptomatic treatment with brefeldin A, calcium channel blockers, NMDA receptors, tilorone. For dementia caused by HIV infection, antiviral drugs are used.
Dementia statistics in the world
