Symptoms Of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Memory Difficulties

As the disease continues to damage the brain, patients with progressive supranuclear palsy will begin to have an increase in memory difficulties. They may also have difficulty regulating their emotions and judgment. It might be difficult for patients to find words to express themselves or to understand the words being spoken to them. They may forget seemingly simple things, both about the world and those around them.

It's common for the memory problems to be accompanied by emotional volatility. Progressive supranuclear palsy can switch from hysterical laughter to hysterical crying for no reason. They might be increasingly irritable and snappish, and may even have unprompted angry outbursts. Alternatively, it's possible patients will become withdrawn and apathetic as they fail to relate to the world around them.

Extreme Fatigue

As with any serious illness, patients with PSP are subject to extreme fatigue and constantly feeling tired all the time. Out of all the symptoms an individual can experience with PSP, one study concluded that eighty percent reported feeling fatigued and experienced difficulty sleeping and sleep disorders. A study was performed on participants with PSP and their sleeping patterns to determine how the severity of the disease affected their sleep. Many individuals with PSP also suffer from severe insomnia and spend on average, two to six hours awake per night.

In the study, among these patients, sleep latency became shorter and the number of times an individual would awaken during the night increased with greater motor impairment, and total time spent sleeping declined as dementia worsened. The findings of the study indicated that in PSP, insomnia is related to the severity of the condition, and sleeping patterns overall worsened as the disease progressed. Insomnia is so incredibly common for PSP patients that it is worse for those with PSP than patients with Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s, and researchers believe it is due to the degenerative changes in brain structures that are responsible for sleep maintenance.