Hafez stresses seriousness of obsessive disorder

Dr. Gamal Hafez stressed that obsessive-compulsive disorder is the result of some ideas that dominate the brain and mind of man. "These ideas are characterized by absurdity, which is a fact that is known to the person whose mind and imagination have penetrated by these," he said.

"Because of its authority over the mind, the person becomes unable to control or eliminate them." "Obsessive-compulsive disorder  is a neurological disease in which the patient is aware that thoughts coming to his mind and his imagination are completely untrue," Hafez added.

Hafez stressed in an exclusive interview with Al Maghrib Today that these ideas turn into mobility rituals characterized by continuity and periodicity, and the patient tries hard to get rid of them, but in vain, because these ideas have stuck to him and tightened their adhesion to him, so that the person will be unable to get rid of them, which makes his livelihood difficult and causes him a lot of problems and embarrassments with others.

Dr. Hafez clarified that obsessive disorder is caused by communication problems between the front part of the brain and its most profound and complex part. "There are many theories that have been developed to explain the causes of this type of diseases, and the most important of these theories the one provided that there is a chemical change takes place in the body of the infected person," he said.

"Furthermore,  there are those who say that the disease is linked to some extent by biological and genetic factors," Hafez added.

Hafez said that the methods of treating this type of mental and neurological diseases vary, where the doctor supervising the situation to give medicines that enable access to control the symptoms of this disease, such as drugs used in the treatment of depression, known as antidepressants. He added that patient may subject to behavioral therapy, may have to change some of the social patterns that come back to these ideas, stressing that the patient may undergo electrical treatment in some cases.

"If all types of treatments have been exhausted without any positive result, the doctor may have to perform surgery for this patient. Surgery is the last type of treatment for this disease," Dr. Hafez concluded.