Cargando…

Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy

BACKGROUND: Vomiting is commonly encountered in clinical medicine. When organic gastrointestinal, metabolic, and brain diseases are ruled out, many cases are considered to be functional. We experienced an adult patient with epilepsy whose main symptom was vomiting. Biopsychosocial approaches were ne...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mutsuura, Hiromi, Fukunaga, Mikihiko, Kanbara, Kenji, Yagyu, Takami, Yamamoto, Kazumi, Kitamura, Kana, Ban, Ikumi, Nakai, Yoshihide
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2642859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19166585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0759-3-2
_version_ 1782164668879470592
author Mutsuura, Hiromi
Fukunaga, Mikihiko
Kanbara, Kenji
Yagyu, Takami
Yamamoto, Kazumi
Kitamura, Kana
Ban, Ikumi
Nakai, Yoshihide
author_facet Mutsuura, Hiromi
Fukunaga, Mikihiko
Kanbara, Kenji
Yagyu, Takami
Yamamoto, Kazumi
Kitamura, Kana
Ban, Ikumi
Nakai, Yoshihide
author_sort Mutsuura, Hiromi
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Vomiting is commonly encountered in clinical medicine. When organic gastrointestinal, metabolic, and brain diseases are ruled out, many cases are considered to be functional. We experienced an adult patient with epilepsy whose main symptom was vomiting. Biopsychosocial approaches were needed to control the symptoms. CASE PRESENTATION: A 26-year-old female with a 10-year history of persistent vomiting was found to have temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Throughout this time, during which the vomiting had become part of a vicious cycle, her epilepsy was poorly controlled by medication. Biopsychosocial approaches were employed successfully and the patient subsequently undertook training to become a home-helper, started a job, and was able to leave her parents' house and live independently. All of her symptoms resolved after she became self-sufficient. DISCUSSION: Vomiting without impaired consciousness is seldom considered to be a manifestation of epilepsy. Difficulty in recording an electroencephalogram (EEG) because of the presence of persistent vomiting delayed the diagnosis. The improvement of symptoms was thought to have been due to the patient's emotional stabilization and physical improvement, which may have stabilized the limbic system. CONCLUSION: When an illness persists for many years and conditioning and a vicious cycle occur secondarily, systematic biopsychosocial approaches are needed in addition to general treatment. Also, secondary symptoms make the diagnosis more difficult when efforts at treatment are ineffective.
format Text
id pubmed-2642859
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2009
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-26428592009-02-14 Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy Mutsuura, Hiromi Fukunaga, Mikihiko Kanbara, Kenji Yagyu, Takami Yamamoto, Kazumi Kitamura, Kana Ban, Ikumi Nakai, Yoshihide Biopsychosoc Med Case Report BACKGROUND: Vomiting is commonly encountered in clinical medicine. When organic gastrointestinal, metabolic, and brain diseases are ruled out, many cases are considered to be functional. We experienced an adult patient with epilepsy whose main symptom was vomiting. Biopsychosocial approaches were needed to control the symptoms. CASE PRESENTATION: A 26-year-old female with a 10-year history of persistent vomiting was found to have temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Throughout this time, during which the vomiting had become part of a vicious cycle, her epilepsy was poorly controlled by medication. Biopsychosocial approaches were employed successfully and the patient subsequently undertook training to become a home-helper, started a job, and was able to leave her parents' house and live independently. All of her symptoms resolved after she became self-sufficient. DISCUSSION: Vomiting without impaired consciousness is seldom considered to be a manifestation of epilepsy. Difficulty in recording an electroencephalogram (EEG) because of the presence of persistent vomiting delayed the diagnosis. The improvement of symptoms was thought to have been due to the patient's emotional stabilization and physical improvement, which may have stabilized the limbic system. CONCLUSION: When an illness persists for many years and conditioning and a vicious cycle occur secondarily, systematic biopsychosocial approaches are needed in addition to general treatment. Also, secondary symptoms make the diagnosis more difficult when efforts at treatment are ineffective. BioMed Central 2009-01-23 /pmc/articles/PMC2642859/ /pubmed/19166585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0759-3-2 Text en Copyright © 2009 Mutsuura et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Case Report
Mutsuura, Hiromi
Fukunaga, Mikihiko
Kanbara, Kenji
Yagyu, Takami
Yamamoto, Kazumi
Kitamura, Kana
Ban, Ikumi
Nakai, Yoshihide
Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy
title Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy
title_full Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy
title_fullStr Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy
title_full_unstemmed Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy
title_short Biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy
title_sort biopsychosocial approaches to a patient with vomiting of 10 years' duration – a case of temporal lobe epilepsy
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2642859/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19166585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1751-0759-3-2
work_keys_str_mv AT mutsuurahiromi biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy
AT fukunagamikihiko biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy
AT kanbarakenji biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy
AT yagyutakami biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy
AT yamamotokazumi biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy
AT kitamurakana biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy
AT banikumi biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy
AT nakaiyoshihide biopsychosocialapproachestoapatientwithvomitingof10yearsdurationacaseoftemporallobeepilepsy