Cerebellar syndromes define a complex of symptoms associated to a patological condition caused usually by damage to the cerebellum or to the spinocerebellar tracts. Part of the central nervous system, the cerebellum is located in the posterior cranial fossa, behind the brainstem. It is involved in coordination of movement, muscle tonus management and maintenance of body equilibrium; it also coordinates the activity of the vestibular system.
Cerebellar syndromes are caused by degenerative diseases (Friedreich ataxia, Pierre Marie disease), atrophias and cerebellar tumors, inflammatory lesions (abcesses and syphilis), multiple sclerosis, cerebrovascular and cerebellar accidents, cranial-cerebral traumatisms and psychic traumas, advanced stages of cervical spondylosis, anterior cervical osteophytes, cervical and cerebellar circulatory deficiencies.
The complex of manifestations occuring as a result of the damage in the cerebellum structure include:
- a difficulty in accurately performing fine movements (dysmetria)
- incapacity to make elementary movements simultaneously (asynergy)
- inability to perform rapidly alternating movements, such as pronation and supination or flexion and extension (adiadochokinesia)
- delays in performing voluntary actions
- difficuties in coordinating writing and speaking: speaking is slow and hesitating, sometimes explosive, jerky
- hypotonia reduced or diminished muscle tone
- cerebellar ataxia: balance disorders
- walking disorders: difficult, uneasy gait with spread lower limbs; drunkman gait
- trembling while performing voluntary movements
- ophtalmological dysfunctions: involuntary and rhythmic movements of the eye globe
- vestibular system dysfunctions
Treatment
By specific acupuncture techniques, the permeability of the blood vessels is restored. The tissue oxygenation processes are normalized, too. The improved permeability of the blood vessels and the normalized cell oxygenation will lead to a reactivation of the local metabolic and immune functions. For instance, where the cerebellar atrophy has an infectious cause, these procedures destroy the living conditions of the pathogeneous factors; the process is started of tissue regeneration or of relocation of the affected functions, where the lesions are too deep.
Whatever the origin of the disease, the stage of tissue regeneration or relocation of functions is present in all the treatment plans. In order to attain these objectives, we also use the active substances of certain herbs with cerebral tonic action, which stimulate the cerebral and cervical circulation, herbs that have remineralizing and fortifying effects upon the central nervous system.
