Journal of Childhood & Developmental Disorders

Our Experience with Childhood Pervasive Developmental Disorders (Autism and Asperger Syndrome): Cure is Possible

Background: Until, 2016, there have been no consultation nor medical treatment services for children with pervasive developmental disorders and other childhood psychiatric disorders in Iraq. However, early during the year 2017, a pediatric psychiatry consultation clinic was established at the children Teaching Hospital of Baghdad Medical City with aim of providing evidence-based consultations and evidence-based medical therapies and also conduction a pediatric psychiatry training courses. Many of the scientific practices and disease patterns were documented earlier through scientific publishing. The aim of this paper is to describe new experiences with pervasive developmental disorders.

Materials and methods: During six months period (from June, 2019 to November, 2019) forty-six new patients (38 males and eight females) with pervasive developmental disorders were observed at the Children Teaching Hospitals of Baghdad Medical City. Their ages ranged from 2 years to 11 years. During this period, eight patients (4 boys and 4 girls) with pervasive developmental disorders whom were included in our previous publications, but their follow up was not complete, are also presented. All patients received individualized courses of intramuscular cerebrolysin as the main therapy for the main autistic features (Impaired social interaction and communication dominated by the lack of response to their name and poor eye contact).

Results: Twenty-four patients (52%) including 20 boys and 4 girls received a diagnosis of typical autism. Seventeen patients (37%) including 14 boys and 3 girls received a diagnosis of atypical autism. Four patients including three boys and one girl (8.7%) received the diagnosis of Asperger syndrome with acceptable language development by definition. One boy was considered to have pervasive developmental disorder otherwise not specified. All the patients experienced some improvement during follow-up. It was possible to document complete disappearance of the main autistic features (Impaired social interaction and communication dominated by the lack of response to their name and poor eye contact) in two patients.

Eight patients (4 boys and 4 girls whom were included in our previous publications, but their follow up was not complete, were also observed. They were treated with individualized treatment courses including intramuscular cerebrolysin. After treatment, all patients experienced complete disappearance of the main autistic features and improvement in speech.

Conclusion: In this paper, a well-documented complete disappearance of autistic features with treatment with individualized courses of intramuscular is reported in nine children with autism and one child with Asperger syndrome. This paper demonstrated that a cure for autism and Asperger syndrome is possible.

Author(s):

Aamir Jalal Al-Mosawi*

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