Effective integration of multiple personalities in a 36-year old female with dissociative identity disorder through functional neurological treatment
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1
Kemp Chiropractic, United States
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2
Life University, United States
Background:
A 36–year-old female single mother of three young children presented to a chiropractic functional neurology clinic after having been recently diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID) by her medical neurologist. She had been told by her therapist that this split of personalities might be a coping mechanism that she had created to deal with the emotional trauma of molestation and the physical trauma of traumatic brain injury that she had sustained during her early childhood from 3 to 7 years of age. Until recently she had not remembered these events, but now these memories were beginning to surface and were being held by one of her multiple personalities. She also reported that from the age of 7 through her 20’s, she had attention deficit disorder (ADD) that had been treated with Ritalin. She reported that she changed her diet by eliminating gluten, soy, dairy and sugar, which resolved her ADD symptoms as well as the asthma and arthritis that she had also been experiencing at that time. Four years ago she was diagnosed by her endocrinologist as having hypothyroidism and had been subsequently taking the prescription levothyroxine. In addition to her chief complaint of DID, this patient also reported symptoms of anxiety and frequent dizziness as well as bladder control issues that precluded her from sleeping through the night.
Methods:
A thorough neurological examination revealed the emergence of four separate and distinct personalities in this patient, with each one having an individual and unique movement disorder. The first and main personality identified herself as the provider/caretaker/mother of the group. She was the personality that tended her children and handled responsibilities at work. She presented with multiple facial and body tics that were exacerbated with attempts at fixation. Standing with feet together and eyes opened created a posterior and rightward shift of her center of pressure that worsened with eyes closed. Gait testing revealed a head roll that would change sides with each heel strike. The addition of mental dual tasking to gait caused her to freeze, which was graded as a 4 on the united Parkinson’s disease rating scale (UPDRS). She had failure of point localization and identification without visualization as well as extinction upon toe testing. She presented with accommodation spasm and was unable to converge her eyes upon testing. Attempts at convergence exacerbated her feelings of anxiety and dizziness. Her second personality identified herself as the protector and fighter. This personality displayed heightened sexuality and promiscuity. She had a deeper, huskier voice and a left-sided cervical/brachial dystonia. The third personality was a preteen who identified herself as being 10-12 years of age. She presented as meek and quiet with a right-sided cervical and right shoulder dystonia. The fourth and final personality was anxious child, who identified herself as less than 7 years of age and held the memories of her molestation. This forth personality presented with a truncal positive myoclonus. Treatment in this case centered on addressing the physical neurological aberrancies as they emerged and did not include any type of emotional or psychological therapy. This patient received a weeklong 5-day intensive treatment that consisted of two sessions per day. Treatment included right posterior vestibular canal stimulation through whole body rolls, gaze stabilization exercises; pursuit and optokinetic therapies; saccadic exercises in which the patient made saccades to a touched body part, bilateral somatosensory stimulation without the use of recording electrodes, to the three branches of the trigeminal nerve, increasing intensity to the point of muscle fasciculation; bilateral somatosensory stimulation without the use of recording electrodes, to the lower extremity in a pattern of stimulation that would support efficiency of gait, increasing intensity to the point of muscle fasciculation; and passive complex figure eight movements of the upper and lower extremities which were executed in counter-phase, one side at a time, while having the patient perform certain mental tasks.
Results:
After the week of intensive treatment, the patient had integrated all four personalities back into one. She held all memories and reported to be free of dizziness and anxiety. Her accommodation spasm was resolved with no exacerbation of dizziness on convergence testing. She regained bladder control and stated that she was able to sleep through the night without interruption. She was able to identify all toes during point localization and extinction was resolved. Her posture and gait normalized. There was no evidence of the movement disorders that had manifested with the prior distinctive personalities.
Conclusion:
The rapid and successful resolution of DID and concomitant symptoms that were evidenced in this case promotes the need for further research of functional neurorehabilitation in the treatment of multiple personality disorders.
Keywords:
Dissociative Identity Disorder,
Traumatic Brain Injury,
Dizziness,
chiropractic neurology,
Neurorehabilitation
Conference:
International Symposium on Clinical Neuroscience: Clinical Neuroscience for Optimization of Human Function, Orlando, United States, 7 Oct - 9 Oct, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Abstracts ISCN 2016
Citation:
Kemp
D and
Esposito
SE
(2016). Effective integration of multiple personalities in a 36-year old female with dissociative identity disorder through functional neurological treatment.
Front. Neurol.
Conference Abstract:
International Symposium on Clinical Neuroscience: Clinical Neuroscience for Optimization of Human Function.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fneur.2016.59.00025
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Received:
31 Aug 2016;
Published Online:
07 Sep 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Susan E Esposito, Life University, Marietta, United States, susanesposito@gmail.com