Idiocy as a lack of intelligence

Man differs in his intellectual development from the animal world. It is the level of a person’s underdevelopment that influences what signs of mental retardation he will exhibit. Idiocy (or idiocy) is the most severe degree of intellectual underdevelopment, the causes of which are considered to be genetic pathologies, the treatment of which is almost impossible.

People often use the word "idiot" without really understanding what it means. In the everyday sense, idiocy refers to unreasonable reasoning or ridiculous, unrealistic ideas, which, most likely, are simply not perceived objectively by the people around us. If we turn to the clinical origin of this term, then idiocy will be understood as an extremely severe hereditary disease of a congenital nature, which manifests itself from the first years of life.

The online magazine psytheater.com calls an illness with extreme mental retardation, when a child is stuck in his development at the level of childhood, idiotic. Such a person may have poor speech, weak thinking, a low pain sensitivity threshold, and also constantly need outside help and care, because he does not know how to perform basic self-care skills.

general information

Oligophrenia is a metabolic disease of a hereditary nature. Its essence is quite difficult to understand for a person far from medicine. In short, the patient’s body lacks the enzyme involved in the process of phenylalanine metabolism, and the result of this is that phenylalanine along with metabolites begins to accumulate in the child’s body.

This negatively affects the functioning of the central nervous system, causing a toxic effect. Well, this, in turn, inhibits mental development, which gradually results in mental deviations. It is impossible to say when this disease first appeared; it is only known that A. Felling first undertook to describe it in 1934. This disease is sometimes called dementia.

Causes of idiocy

What could be the reasons leading to the occurrence of such a terrible disease as idiocy? In fact, it's not always about genes:

• Damage to the baby's head during pregnancy or childbirth.
• Relationship of parents (brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers).
• Infection of the mother during pregnancy, which affected the formation of the baby’s brain.
• Moral shocks or illnesses of the mother during pregnancy.
• Genetic predisposition to neurological or mental illness.
• Hereditary syphilis.
• Maternal drinking during conception or pregnancy.
• Delayed development of the baby's brain during the prenatal period.
• Using opium or vodka to lull a child.
• Inadequate nutrition of the mother during pregnancy or the newborn.
• Lack of hygienic living conditions.
• Excessive wrapping of the baby's head.
• Chromosome abnormalities.
• Gene mutations.
• Metabolic disorders in the mother.
• Toxoplasmosis or rubella in the mother during pregnancy.
• Incompatibility of the child and mother according to the Rh factor.
• Uncontrolled use of medications during pregnancy by the mother.
• Toxic effects on the mother or her fetus during pregnancy.

Idiocy is a consequence of various pathologies that are observed at the genetic level, during intrauterine development or after the birth of the baby. There are classifications of idiocy:

1. By form:

• Torpid idiocy - patients are lost in space and time, immobilized. If they are not occupied with anything, then they will lie motionless on the bed for days.
• Excitable idiocy - patients are constantly in a pendulum motion: they hit their heads on the headboard, sway from side to side, scratch their faces, tear out hair from their heads.

1. Based on the signs and symptoms:

• Amaurotic idiocy is a rare and progressive disease. Vision decreases due to a damaged retina, which partially or completely disappears. Dementia develops quickly.
• Congenital amaurotic - manifests itself in newborns, accompanied by hydrocephalus, convulsions, and a sharp decrease in muscle tone.
• Early childhood - symptoms appear in the first year of life: vision decreases and mental retardation increases.
• Late childhood – symptoms appear before 5 years of age. Dementia, decreased vision and seizures increase gradually.
• Youthful – symptoms appear before the age of 10 in the form of motor, endocrine and autonomic disorders, decreased memory and intelligence.
• Late – symptoms are diagnosed already in adulthood, when hearing begins to decline, the cerebellum is damaged and various pathologies appear in the brain.
• Dysostotic - symptoms are inherited: defects of the higher nervous system, joints, bones, severe diseases of internal organs.
• Hydrocephalic - symptoms appear as a result of congenital dropsy of the brain.
• Myxedematous - the disease is a consequence of improper functioning of the thyroid gland.
• Moral – the body is healthy, but the moral side of a person suffers.

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Idiocy is severe mental retardation

Oligophrenia has several stages, differing from each other in severity. Idiocy is the most complex and difficult of them. A person with this degree of dementia is almost completely unable to think, is unable to pronounce words, and for the most part his speech is limited to an indistinct mooing. Attention is also reduced to nothing, there is no talk of concentration. Incomplete perception of oneself and the environment.

Idiocy is the inability not only to speak fully, but also to understand what others are saying. Many children with idiocy are unable to learn to stand and walk without assistance.

Causes of the disease

Idiocy is a disease that has very specific causes. It can be:

1. Genetic diseases. One of their main manifestations is mental retardation. These are mainly Angelman syndrome, Down syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome. All these diseases, among other things, are accompanied by physical underdevelopment and are associated with malfunctions in the structure of genes.
2. Infectious diseases. Mental abnormalities are often formed on the basis of diseases such as rubella, toxoplasmosis, and syphilis.
3. Adverse factors that affect the pregnant mother. Unfortunately, people have begun to forget that alcohol, drugs, radiation and poor ecology negatively affect not only the body of the pregnant mother, but also the fetus.
4. Iodine deficiency. In order for the nervous system to develop correctly, iodine must be in abundance. It often happens that women with iodine deficiency suffer from this disease even more during pregnancy, and the result is a child with mental retardation. The disease can also develop if during the first three years of life the baby does not receive the required amount of iodine.
5. Ionizing radiation. It is for this reason that pregnant women are not prescribed x-rays.
6. Exposure to chemical agents. They are household toxic substances - solvents, insect poison.
7. Eating insufficient food. Many women, worried about their figure during pregnancy, torment themselves with strict diets and irregular meals. As a result, the body begins to deplete, and not only the pregnant woman herself suffers, but also her fetus.
8. Damage to the fetus inside the womb. This happens due to hormonal problems during pregnancy.
9. Birth trauma to the brain. The baby's head may be too compressed by the forceps, or the baby may simply be dropped to the floor.

Causes of idiocy

The reasons that caused idiocy can be different:

- accidental damage to the head of a newborn;

- an infectious disease complicated by inflammation of the brain;

- genetic predisposition to mental and nervous diseases;

- drunkenness during conception;

- illnesses or moral shocks of the expectant mother during pregnancy;

- parental relationship;

- hereditary syphilis;

- delayed embryonic brain development;

- poor hygienic conditions, insufficient nutrition, excessive head wrapping;

- the use of vodka and opium in lulling a child.

Symptoms

Idiocy and insanity have very similar symptoms. These pathologies can be distinguished by the degree of speech impairment. Thus, patients with marasmus retain quite stable speech, with a small but still sufficient vocabulary, which is not observed in patients with oligophrenia.

Insanity is an acquired condition, and it begins with the collapse of an existing intellectual component. And idiocy is a disease that makes it impossible to develop intelligence. It is characterized by:

• Retarded physical development. Sick children learn to hold their heads, walk, and sit late. Some people cannot learn this at all.
• Poor coordination of movements. Most often they are too imprecise and sweeping.
• Lack of meaningful speech or its underdevelopment. Speech mainly consists of shouting and mooing.
• Unconscious thinking. A person is unable to read, cannot assess a situation, or adequately comprehend something.
• Bad memory. Things, people, even the closest and dearest, are forgotten very quickly. The patient may perceive his family as strangers, forgetting where things are edible and where things are inedible.
• Emotional spectrum disorders. Outbursts of anger, irritation, and aggression may suddenly occur.
• Inability to self-care. Patients are unable to brush their teeth or wash themselves.

Three types of idiocy: intellectual, moral, aesthetic

Idiocy first, intellectual. This is when a person does not distinguish what is from what is not, what can happen from what cannot happen. In the most severe forms, he directly accepts the non-existent as existing, in less severe forms - with reservations: “What if?”, “Well, it happens,” “I want to believe,” etc. This is the stage of development when a person believes fairy tales. For children - naturally, for adults - only when they have not grown up.

To believe that there are elections in the Russian Federation is just such idiocy. To believe that an opponent of the government, whom the government fears and who has two convictions and two suspended sentences, is at large and is fighting this government is another example of intellectual idiocy. For example, the belief that the gopnik who met you at night: “Lend me, you bastard, ten obliques, I’ll return them tomorrow,” will actually return them, is much less idiocy. Well, really, whatever happens! This is simply an inability to correctly assess the probability of the unlikely. This is not complete ilioism yet. It is idiocy to consider something possible that cannot exist in principle. All our talk about the opposition’s chances in the elections, about whom to vote for or not to vote for, about watching or not watching, especially with the sentence about “something needs to be done” – this is intellectual idiocy.

But in our situation, intellectual idiocy is not the worst thing. Intelligence, like the ability to build roads, has never been our strong point. Moral idiocy is much worse.

This is when good is declared bad and bad is declared good. Putin began turning us into moral idiots as soon as he emerged. And he has been doing this for exactly 18 years. The degradation of the country and society is declared to be rising from its knees, a bloodbath is declared to be the restoration of territorial integrity, paralysis is declared to be stability, mediocrity is declared to be talent, theft is declared to be salvation, aggression is to be defended, spiritual regression is to be declared to be a religious revival, the murderers of the country are to be patriots, and real patriots are trying to save the country. , – foreign agents, etc. and so on..

A huge part of the country, and not much that is huge - growing all the time, lives like moral idiots: it considers good to be bad and bad to be good. How many are there? Tens of percent. And here it doesn’t matter whether it’s four dozen or eight tens. And forty percent of moral idiots make the prognosis for society unfavorable.

In electoral behavior, moral idiocy is manifested in the readiness to vote for non-angels - where can we find angels? And in particular - for skillful manipulators, for “anyone except”: for fascists, Stalinists and others, excuse the harsh word, bastard, and also for whom the leader says. All our “I don’t like him, but” are manifestations of moral idiocy. Which makes us eat, sorry again, crap because we've been told it's healthy.

But moral idiocy is not the worst thing. Much worse is aesthetic idiocy.

This is when the ugly does not cause physiological rejection. When aesthetic differences are ignored. When the aesthetic feeling is generally suppressed. When a person no longer responds with a gag reflex to the ugliness of vulgarity.

Putin’s television has also been cultivating aesthetic idiocy for exactly 18 years. Gradually dragging the most seemingly innocent programs into abomination. This is what all cultural production is aimed at. There are almost no islands of resistance. Yes, there were few of them.

The people whose hands carry out this aesthetic dumbing down - and this is a huge group of people - deserve the most irreconcilable public condemnation. However, “they deserve” is not entirely accurate here. Such condemnation is a natural, reflexive act, like vomiting. Just “judgment”, that is, there is no intellectual component in it. Without thinking or thinking, the body rids itself of the ingested muck. If, of course, he is healthy.

Among the media leaders, conductors of Putin’s policy of commonality, one of the most striking faces is the daughter of the first mayor of the center of the Leningrad region (I don’t pronounce “Petersburg” in relation to this city; in Soviet times, “Peter” was easily said, but now “Petersburg” is well, not at all). Ksyusha cannot even be called an apologist for vulgarity - she is an apostle of vulgarity. The real, true face of Putinism. She cannot even be considered an agent; she is the closest person to Putinism. Not so much for Putin personally, but for the system he built. And it’s hard to imagine a more native person for this system.

I pay tribute to the creativity of the Department of Internal Policy of the AP. They are very capable guys. They work great! And five years ago, when they made Ksyusha the leader of the opposition, an ally of Navalny and, hee hee, Yashin. And they worked especially well now. If you want an opposition candidate, you will get it. It’s not enough for you to be old, forgive me a thousand times for the expression, ..... Yavlinsky, get ..... younger. Just come. Vote for whoever you want, just show up. And it doesn’t matter whether you come or not. Just don’t organize anything parallel! Just don’t make a parallel protest!

This is the only thing they are afraid of. Not this or that election outcome. There can be no outcome to elections when there are no elections themselves. They are afraid of the growth of protest sentiments, and most of all - the self-organization of protest. Even if in the form of an active boycott. Several million signatures under the declaration “This is not an election, but a ....stvo” (sorry a million times) - that’s what they are afraid of. And, in order to prevent this, they will do anything - repression, murder, whatever you want... But first, of course, cunning.

With such support, Ksyusha’s triumphal march is guaranteed. And she will collect signatures, and the donkeys will sing loud praises to her, and the goats will sweep the road for the beards. And the audience will sob and cry.

Naturally, the trolls will set the tone. But there will also be many sincere sympathizers.

The scale of the epidemic of aesthetic idiocy in our country is wider than that of the epidemic of moral idiocy, and than that of the epidemic of intellectual idiocy.

Treatment

Unfortunately, treatment for the described disease is impossible. It is aimed solely at relieving and improving the course of symptoms.

So, in order to normalize metabolism, glutamic acid, Cerebrolysin, nootropics, and vitamin therapy are prescribed. And to relieve inhibition a little, natural stimulants are used - Chinese lemongrass, aloe, ginseng. Antipsychotics cope with agitation, and seizures are saved with the help of anticonvulsants. The earlier treatment is started, the more effective its effect.

Signs and symptoms of idiocy

Only after a detailed examination can the doctor assess the degree of intellectual development of the patient and make a final diagnosis. Idiocy is often combined with stupidity, but stupidity in itself is not a sign of idiocy.

Dullness is expressed in narrow-minded, superficial and rigid thinking. In the case of stupidity, the delay in development is so insignificant that outwardly the patient looks like an absolutely normal person.

However, his mental abilities are limited to the perception of only a certain range of information and the categorical rejection of anything else. This is expressed in banal stupidity, poor intelligence, limited thinking and the inability to independently analyze the information received.

A person suffering from dullness and suffering from idiocy is absolutely incapable of perceiving information, drawing any conclusions and conclusions from what is happening around him. In general, stupidity develops at the genetic level and is caused by the phenomenon of mutation.

Such people may experience slight progress in spiritual development and even the formation of some self-awareness, although the thinking function as such remains at a low level. However, all these minor advances are not possible in the case of idiocy.

The signs and symptoms of idiocy are sufficiently pronounced and vivid. Active defensive actions are not typical for patients. For example, during a medical injection, an idiot, feeling fear or pain, will not attempt to close himself or push away the object of the threat; instead, he will cry and scream.

The helplessness of patients reaches a variety of degrees of development and forms of manifestation: lack of ability to eat food independently, involuntary acts of urination and defecation, inability to walk, despite the absence of damage or paralysis of the leg muscles.

Attempts to walk are similar to those of children - the gait is extremely awkward, shaky, arms are spread out to the sides. The same applies to speech: it may be completely absent or resemble baby babble, the pronunciation of repeated inarticulate sounds.

In terms of general psychological development, idiots are similar to children aged one to four years. However, in terms of character traits they can differ from each other: from silent and apathetic to extremely active and curious. Many of them have a tendency to imitate and stereotype behavior and form habits.

With the highest form of idiocy, free speech and even superficial training of the patient in writing and reading are possible. He can also be taught the simplest skills and abilities, and how to carry out simple tasks. However, further learning is absolutely impossible, since idiots quickly become overwhelmed by complex tasks.

Idiocy as a lack of intelligence also entails moral destruction of the individual, which is manifested in impulsive actions that are aimed exclusively at satisfying desires, a tendency to lie and deceive, and rudeness.

The phenomenon of idiocy also lies in the fact that along with a total impairment of intelligence, excessive development of memory occurs - some patients are able to remember and repeat unusually complex and voluminous computational actions, text, and sometimes have impressive musical and artistic abilities.

The characteristics of this mental illness, however, are not limited to spiritual and ethical problems. In most cases, it is accompanied by physical disorders: asymmetry or reduction of the skull, extensive paralysis or paralysis of one half of the body, epilepsy, strabismus, blindness, malformed auricle, incorrect placement and growth of teeth.

At the everyday level, in our time, the signs of this disease are often called impractical behavior, confusing it with asocial or deviant, in other words, “abnormal.”

However, modern politically correct psychiatry defines idiocy not as a clinical deviation from the “norm”, but as an unconventional intellectual orientation. Idiocy, along with imbecility and idiocy, according to the generally accepted medical classification of diseases, is classified as increasing degrees of mental retardation.

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Forecast

Idiocy is a disease that has a negative prognosis. All violations are irreversible. Both mental and mental activity suffers. Unfavorable diseases such as intellectual-mnestic disorders often develop. The pathology is congenital and cannot be treated. With a mild form of the disease, people live up to 50 years, with a severe form they die before the age of 20.

Prevention

Prevention of the disease mostly concerns maintaining a healthy lifestyle during pregnancy. It is necessary to completely give up smoking and alcohol, do not forget to visit a gynecologist, register, take walks in the fresh air, and sleep the right amount of time. Proper balanced nutrition, avoidance of unhealthy fatty foods, and consumption of greens, vegetables and fruits deserve special attention.

People with idiocy are almost unable to live in the natural environment, which is why they are placed in special boarding schools. This is especially necessary for those diagnosed with severe mental retardation.

We described what this is in the article. And understanding how complex this pathology is, I would like to emphasize: no matter what a person is, it is necessary to treat him with respect and try to make his existence easier.