“Please don’t chase me!”
“I said, leave me alone!”
“You are too beautiful to be true.”
You must be wondering why I chose to open this piece with these out-of-place kinds of statements. The reason being that I want you readers to read and think for yourself how Hallucinations: From Mild To Intense actually manifest in real life.
Even though the most common notion of hallucinations has been, since time immemorial, seeing or hearing objects, sounds, people, or even events that do not exist in actuality.
To your astonishment, you would learn about the other senses involved in hallucination as you read along. However, before I reveal the unusual types of hallucinations, let’s attend to the more crucial aspects to be considered, such as causes, manifestation, and treatment of hallucinations.
Common Causes of Hallucinations:
- Schizophrenia
- Parkinson’s disease
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Lewy body of dementia
- Migraine
- Brain tumor
- Charles Bonnet Syndrome – vision problems like macular degeneration, glaucoma, or cataracts cause people to see things beyond reality.
- Epilepsy or Seizures
Symptoms of Hallucinations:
One must note that the symptoms or manifestation of hallucinations may vary with the sense organs primarily in play.
Five major types of hallucinations as they correspond to the five senses are mentioned below:
- Tactile: Feeling sensations in the body, for instance, believing a bug crawling all over one’s face.
- Gustatory: Often getting a metallic taste on the tongue.
- Olfactory: Smelling an odor either pungent/pleasant in either or both nostrils.
- Auditory: Hearing commands that provoke one to cause harm unto self or others.
- Visual: Seeing objects, people, patterns or lights.
Treatment for Hallucinations:
Usually, the treatment meted out for hallucinations entails salient parameters like the underlying cause, the type of hallucination and overall health of the individual.
According to experts, the most beneficial way of going about the treatment is to take a multidisciplinary approach; which encompasses medication, therapy and social support.
Key Methods of Treating Hallucinations:
Psychotherapy:
Encouraging to inculcate an eye for detail of the symptoms and psycho-educating about the determinant reasons for the same.
Self-help:
Strategies like exercise, ignoring the voices, reading, and talking to others.
Medication:
Antipsychotic medication such as Nuplazid is administered.
Distraction:
Conversation, music, or even time-out techniques can help one alleviate the sensory overwhelm caused by hallucinations.
Routine:
Keeping the concerned person engaged in day-to-day activities as well as recreational ones may make it less likely that they will stray from reality and experience hallucinations. Additionally, recording the occurrences of the same and the circumstances involved can be of great advantage.
As parting thoughts, I would like to request each of you worthy readers to get psycho-educated about the lesser-known intricacies and effects of schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and the like.
Being sensitive to and behaving sensibly with people undergoing bouts/episodes of hallucinations are the only two things expected of us as cognizant consumers of Psychology.
The person suffering from recurring hallucinations already has a hard time dealing with what appears scary to us, so let’s all pledge to not complicate their misery any further.
Take care, Stay safe!
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