How to Care for Someone With Tourette's Syndrome

Caring for someone with Tourette's Syndrome, a neurological brain disorder that causes vocal and motor tics, can be challenging and frustrating. Helping someone to reduce the potentially embarrassing symptoms of Tourette's Syndrome may be easier than you think, however, since treatment options have become available in the last few years. Read on to learn more about how to care for someone with Tourette's Syndrome.

Things You'll Need

• Mirror
• Physician or mental-health professional

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Instructions

• 1

  Care for someone with Tourette's Syndrome by bringing all of his tics and vocal outbursts to his attention whenever they happen. Many people with Tourette's are unaware of their tics, and merely bringing them to their attention may help them to try to suppress them. Make sure that you inform them of their symptoms in a calm, helpful manner.

• 2

  Use mirror therapy to care for someone with Tourette's Syndrome. This involves having her watch her tics in a mirror, so that she becomes more aware of how her behavior looks to others. Again, this can make her more aware of her condition, and help her to modify her behavior, so that the symptoms of Tourette's Syndrome will be less noticeable to others.

• 3

  Eliminate dietary substances that may cause your charge to be jittery, nervous or overstimulated. Caffeine and sugar can exacerbate the symptoms of Tourette's Syndrome, so limit coffee, soda, sweets and fruit juice.

• 4

  Provide an environment of support and understanding for someone with Tourette's Syndrome. Many symptoms of Tourette's can be aggravated by stress from the outside world, as well as feelings of embarrassment and isolation. By ensuring that the individual with Tourette's is surrounded with people who are aware of the condition, that level of stress may be significantly reduced.

• 5

  Make sure that when you care for someone with Tourette's, the individual is following the plan set by health care professionals. This means taking any prescribed medication as directed, being consistent with appointments for behavior-modification therapy and following any other instructions for treatment.