Clinical and epidemiological characteristics of disabling neurological diseases (literature review)

Abstract

Disabling neurological diseases are accompanied by disturbances in motor activity, sensitivity, cognitive impairment and chronic pain, often reduce the quality of life in its last years and months, cause death, and therefore they are proposed to be considered as palliative diseases. To determine the list of these diseases, we made a selection from the analytical report of the Global Burden of Disease Study for 1990–2010, published in the Lancet journal in 2012. Of 289 disabling diseases, based on the criteria of direct or frequent comorbid damage to the nervous system, the presence of chronic pain, cognitive decline and limitation of motor activity, which are the causes of a significant decrease in the quality of life and work capacity, we chose the following diseases and pathological conditions: malignant neoplasms, AIDS, severe injuries, strokes, demyelinating diseases, epilepsy, depression and suicide, musculoskeletal disorders (neck, lower back pain, arthritis), tension headache, migraine, loss of vision and hearing, dementia of adults, severe and profound mental retardation of children, children’s cerebral palsy, congenital malformations. We studied the trend of increasing or decreasing the burden of selected diseases depending on the number of years lived with disability and analyzed the interpretation of these trends according to literary sources. Special attention in the review was paid to disabling neurological diseases, which are unjustifiably not considered in the health care systems of most countries as palliative: epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and dementia. The clinical and epidemiological characteristics of these diseases were also studied by the bibliosemantic method. The search for literature sources for the review was conducted in PubMed and Google Scholar. It is concluded that the treatment of patients with disabling neurological diseases as palliative patients, with appropriate organizational solutions in national health care systems, will help to improve the quality of life and reduce suffering of both patients and their family members.