RLR
|
Hand eye coordination tests are generalizations that are coupled with a great deal of other examination factors and diagnostic testing. Alone, they do not represent neurological deficit by any means whatsoever.
Whenever these tests are utilized, I'm constantly having to remind physician residents and medical students that "handedness" plays a major role in the outcome. If you happen to be right-handed, you will perform far better with your dominant right hand than you will with your left and some people are far more affected by handedness than others to the extent that it can dramatically affect their coordination and performance. Surely you've heard of people with "two left feet."
There are actually very specific signs that are evaluated with hand/eye coordination tests that have far more to do with whether you can simply touch your own nose or the examiner's finger as a target or not. The same holds true for proprioceptive testing and general balance/coordination. Practitioners who use these tests without experience of knowing the parameters of what we in neurology consider to be normal, will most often interpret performance and results strictly as either pass or fail.
Incidentally, although I certainly haven't examined you, I would consider your description of your performance to be entirely unremarkable in the absence of other supporting diagnostic criteria, definitely not a "neurological deficit."
Somatic features of anxiety disorder are most often the result of changes to the nervous system, causing muscular tension, altered performance to sensory and organ systems, even changes to the immune system. Unwarranted stimulation produces changes that can either be mild or dramatic in nature. It's very important for you to realize that the state of the nervous system produced by anxiety and panic disorders, commonly described as fight or flight phenomenon, is entirely normal for certain environmental circumstances. People who experience this phenomenon in the proper context do not reflect upon the sensations as abnormal. It is only when the body adopts such a posture for prolonged periods in the absence of warranted environmental circumstances that "symptoms" begin to appear and construed by the affected person as physical in nature. Subsequent fear often accentuates the symptoms and a growing fear that something is dreadfully wrong begins to develop in the mind of the person afflicted, quickly leading to the assumption that the underlying cause is physical in nature.
So what we're really speaking about here is the perceived circumstances rather than actual circumstances that are capable of producing change to a person's level of anxiety in such cases. This is true to such an extent that most all patients falling under my care often state "but I don't feel anxious" or "If there's nothing physically wrong with me, then why do I feel so sick?" It is a contradiction in the way the circumstances are being perceived by the affected individual by comparison to situations wherein they might feel it warranted based upon previous experience. They are unable to identify the causal factors due to a failure to make the logical connection between the intangible source of their anxiety and its subsequent effects upon the body from a symptomatic standpoint. See how that works?
What I'm trying to communicate to you here is that the brain and nervous system have no checks or balances to determine whether your perceptions are correct or not. In fact, the world around us can often deceive the senses. So If you feel that your preservation or safety in other ways is in imminent danger (even when no actual danger is present), the brain responds to your perception and not the actual circumstances. It invokes the fight or flight phenomenon that causes changes to the body to physically prepare for either combat or escape. Note here that I said physically prepare. Does that make any relevant sense where the appearance of physical symptoms is concerned? Fight or flight is autonomic in nature, meaning that it is engaged without conscious effort. So now what do you think about a system that both reacts to perceptions whether accurate or not and can also be induced in the absence of the conscious mind's will or desire?
The key lies in discovering what perceptions have caused you to believe that your safety is in jeopardy in some way, sufficient enough for your brain to believe the threat actually exists and therefore has responded by inducing the fight or flight phenomenon. Anxiety is produced because you are unable to identify the threat. If you happen to be a person who has a habit of constantly preparing in advance, emotionally or otherwise, imagine how this might affect you if you are unable to make such preparation because you do not know what, when where or how this unknown threat may approach and confront you and yet, you feel it is nevertheless imminent.
You're going to be fine. You simply have a lot of introspection to perform and gain a far better understanding of how the brain responds physically to psychological manifestations. Work closely with your therapist on these issues. They are very adept at helping you to decifer your emotions, perceptions and patterns construed as faulty.
As for brain chemistry, I'm grounded in behavioral neurology so in my world, all psychological phenomenon has its roots in neurochemistry.
Best regards and Good Health
|