LOBOTOMY

When we hear the word lobotomy first thing that comes to mind is an operation on the brain, but what does this operation ?. In the 50s it was very common in patients with depression and schizophrenia, to which this intervention became more calm and cooperative. Over time, it began to look like a violent procedure that did not imply a cure.

Lobotomy is a type of surgery called psychosurgery, based on the idea that mental illness can be cured by changing the way the brain works. Doctors believed that changing the connections to the frontal lobes could change emotions without affecting intelligence.

 

 The brain is composed of two types of material: gray and white. The first includes the neurons or brain cells, and the second nerve fibers connecting gray matter and carry messages to electrical impulses. Lobotomy tries to change the connections of white matter in the gray.The first lobotomies were performed in 1935 by neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz. For this he created a tool called leucotomo. First he made holes on the sides of the skull and introduced the leucotomo that stretched a metal tip with which removed the white matter.In the US, the psychologist Walter Freeman improved process making it quicker and cheaper. Freeman drew the prefrontal cortex through the eye sockets. The tool I used looked like an ice pick, so the technique is known as ice pick lobotomy. As he reached the top of the eye socket, he hits with a hammer to break the thin bone. The transorbital lobotomy took 10 minutes or less.As it was easy to do, he did not even care staff medical training, without an operating room. Between 1949 and 1956 about 50,000 lobotomies were performed. 

During the time when lobotomies were performed, doctors reported seeing improvements in patients, which became more relaxed and friendly. But some people were not happy with the surgery, ending his life in a psychiatric institution.
One of the negative examples was the surgery that Freeman did in the sister of President John F. Kennedy, Rosemary. The operation left her with the mentality of a child. He could not control some functions of the body and spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital.
Today, although it was banned in many countries, there are some places where it is still practiced. Especially for the cure of epilepsy and some obsessive compulsive disorders. With the advancement of pharmaceutical and new drugs to treat diseases, lobotomy is rejected by many physicians to be cruel and ineffective.

 In my personal opinion the lobotomy is today, an unnecessary and very invasive process for patients as it has many consequences in them, and in ancient times was made to cure mental disorders like depression that were considered incurable in his time. today it is very rare that it exists and is not made to treat mental problems as those already mentioned above

 

Recovered on http://www.batanga.com/curiosidades/5247/que-es-la-lobotomia on 11th november, 2015  at 16:20 by Rebeca Laura G.L 2719140