Tourette Syndrome Research Paper

A Surgeon’s Life

Tourette syndrome is a neurological disorder which becomes evident in early childhood or adolescence. The first symptoms usually are involuntary movements (tics) of the face, arms, limbs or trunk. These tics are frequent, repetitive and rapid. The most common first symptom is a facial tic (eye blink, nose twitch, grimace), and is replaced or added to by other tics of the neck, trunk, and limbs. the author dwells much more on how his colleague, and those around him, has adjusted to the tics caused by Tourette's syndrome. Tourette’s affect perhaps one person in a thousand. The author of the book studies Dr. Carl Bennett, and explains in his book that this syndrome is like an obsessive. Bennett’s tics happens suddenly, and he touches his mustache to check for symmetry, his glasses to check for balance, and as Bennett said, “The touching has to be symmetrical.” As he explains, when they got into Bennett’s house, he patted his dogs, and his sons ran out, and then he patted their heads, too, in

Dr. Bennett was touching the lamp above his head too many times. ” The sense of personal space, of the self in relation to other objects and other people, tends to be markedly altered in Tourette’s syndrome” (page 83). This means those who suffer from this syndrome want to have more space than normal people. For instance, there may be a sense that other vehicles are too close or looming when they are at a normal distance. Another explanation of Bennett was different from sudden compulsive or impulsive touching is pressing the foot on the ground to make a circle around him. As he explains,” Like a dog marking its territory. I feel it in my bones. I think it is something primal, prehumen, maybe something that all of us, without knowing it, have in us. But Tourette’s ‘releases’ these primitive behaviors.” Another symptom of Tourett’s syndrome is anxiety and