Intellectual disability is characterized by sub-average intellectual ability and lack of skills in persons, causing limitations in conducting their normal activities. They show limitation in areas such as:
- Intellectual functioning: This refers to the ability to learn, reason, and solve problems in patients
- Adaptive behaviors: Skills that help the patients to communicate effectively with others and also take care of themselves.
Causes of Intellectual Disability
Some of the most common causes of intellectual disability are:
- Genetic conditions: Down syndrome and X syndrome
- Illness or injury: Infections like measles and meningitis, exposure to toxic substances, infection in the brain, etc.
- Problems during pregnancy: Hampered brain development intrusion due to excessive alcohol and drug usage by the expectant mother
- Problems during childbirth: Baby born extremely premature or deprived of oxygen during birth
Signs of Intellectual Disability in Children
Signs of intellectual disability may depend on the severity of the disabilities which may appear during infancy or when a child reaches his/her school age. Some of the common signs are:
- Trouble while talking
- Slow at accomplishing their daily chores like dressing, feeding and potty training
- Difficulty in remembering things
- Behavior problems accompanied with tantrums
- Lack of cognitive skill
- Inability to sit up, crawl, or roll over
- Late motor movement
Diagnosis
A thorough assessment of intellectual disability includes the following:
- Psychological testing for intellectual functioning
- Tests to evaluate adaptive functioning
- Genetic and neurological testing
- Self-care skills
- Family history
People with intellectual disability have impairment ranging from mild to severe. A child with severe disabilities requires dedicated care and support from parents and caretakers.
Intellectual disability cannot be completely cured. However, early diagnosis and interventions help to improve the adaptive functioning of a child. With parental support and intellectual disability treatment, a child can learn many skills to enhance his/her life. Apart from the conventional treatment approaches such as behavior therapy, occupational therapy or speech therapy aimed to treat the symptoms, neuro-restorative therapy such as cell treatment is also beneficial. The objective of the surgeons at NeuroGen hospital is to reduce the level of damage and to enhance the practical status of the individual with intellectual disability.
To reverse the damage caused to the brain, a neuro-restorative intellectual disability treatment with autologous bone marrow stem cells is beneficial. The marrow is extracted from the patient’s own hip bone with the help of an aspiration needle. The stem cells are separated from the marrow with the help of density gradient centrifugation method. Before transfusion, the stem cells are diluted in CSF to maximize the quantity of the cells. The individual is placed in a supine position, and with local anaesthesia, the cells are administered into the spine. With the help of cerebrospinal fluid, the injected cells travel to the brain to indulge in repairing the damaged cells and restoring the brain’s plasticity.
Intellectual disability treatment with stem cells has provided significant improvements in patients diagnosed with intellectual disability.
