Here there is an atmosphere of comfort, tranquility, kindness. Here you will be welcomed, carefully listened to, examined with the latest equipment, prescribed treatment and inspire hope. Here – this is in Istyna Kyiv Scientific and Methodological Center for Ultrasound Medical Diagnostics, our correspondent is talking with Ulyana Bogdanivna Lushchyk the head of the Center.
– Ulyana Bogdanivna, what is your center specialized in?
– These include diseases such as vascular dystonia, migraine, epilepsy and convulsive syndromes, tics, hyperkinesis, strokes, neuroses, impaired speech, delayed psychomotor development, encephalopathy, etc., that is, disorders of the brain.
I have been practicing the technique of brain vessels ultrasound for fifteen years. It started with a stroke problem. Unfortunately, recently they have become more frequent and younger, and now, thirty-year-old strokes are no longer surprising. But the worst is when it happens at the age of 13-17. This is, without exaggeration, a disaster for our gene pool and for society.
Thus, life itself led to the fact that, beginning with the study of adult pathology, we soon approached the study of child pathology. In addition, with the development and improvement of the ultrasound technique, when it became possible to study not only arterial but also venous blood flow, it was revealed that the field of work was not started here.
– So you can conclude that ultrasound plays a paramount role in your work?
– Indeed, instrumental methods of diagnosis are very sensitive, they are, figuratively speaking, giving us additional eyes, so that we can see a disease that is just emerging and almost does not detect itself.
Subsequently, we went on to inflammatory brain diseases, to traumatic brain injuries, in which the vessels also undergo negative changes. And the first link in the chain of such diseases is stress. Changes that occur in the brain of a stressed person are quite comparable to changes in traumatic brain injury, and the apparatus confirms this.
– You have many child patients with various disabilities. Nowadays, the number of them is growing, and this is alarming …
– Unfortunately, there are widespread pregnancy and childbirth pathologies now, which cannot but affect the health of the next generation. With the development of the methodology, we have included in the scope of our research epilepsy, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, oligophrenia, and already have some positive achievements in terms of social adaptation of such children in their later lives.
– Talking to a doctor with your baby certainly has its own peculiarities?
–Well. For the most part, children still cannot tell where they are hurting, complain about something specific. However, they cry, they show aggression, their actions can be unmotivated, in general the behavior becomes such that it should disturb the parents. Previously, we wrote a lot about the disadvantages of education. However, I was convinced that upbringing was nurturing, but if the brain does not respond properly to stimuli, then the child will behave inappropriately. And when after a month of treatment we see a completely different baby, then to re-educate her\his at such a time is impossible in my opinion, but the thing is that the brain’s reactions to external stimuli have changed.
We have one small patient, Yuri V., who is five years old. Born with congenital heart disease, he underwent complicated surgery at the Kyiv Research Institute of Cardiovascular Surgery. Up to three years he almost did not speak, had delay in development, was almost unmanaged. He was diagnosed with mental retardation. Now after treatment, the boy began to speak, learned to count, his behavior changed.
Maxim T. (10 years old) has hydrocephalus and epilepsy. This boy is different from other children with a wonderful love for people and for life. After a long treatment, changes for the better also occurred. We are very fond of him and his parents, because it is the fate of the family, and we must do everything for Maxim to be able to adapt in society in the future, to find his place in it – it has been a long time to ask questions about such patients.
And when you see a baby come to life, it is such a great joy after all the complexities of treatment (and above all, intravenous computer-controlled injections are, of course, not easy for babies) that they inspire new searches.
There is now a promising direction in the study and treatment of mental illness in general. Such diseases are a major problem in our society. Unfortunately, a person with a mental illness is treated mainly as a kind of needlessness; she must bear her cross alone, and everyone is indifferent to him. In addition, modern psychiatry is largely based on the subjective view of the doctor on the patient, that is, the view of the healthy person to the sick person. Therefore, there is a need to raise psychiatry to a higher stage is long overdue, and it needs to be equipped with modern research methods.
Experience has shown that the further development of science often requires a combination of its various branches, at first glance, far from each other. Therefore, the development of new techniques in our center is in close contact with biophysics, because it is also necessary to know the biomechanical properties of blood vessels, and the laws of hydrodynamics, and ultrasound physics, etc. Of course, one person cannot cover everything. There are wise sayings: one head is good and two are better. So the more intelligent heads will work on the problem, the easier it will be to separate the precious grain from the half and find the truth. Therefore, our center is called “Istyna\Truth”, we search for our truth, and the more we look for it, the more useful we will find, and then we will again ask ourselves new questions and begin to solve them, because that is the progress of science and society.
The basis of the medicine of the future should be a personalized approach to each person. That is why our center is focused on integrated check-up of patients. The human body is such a complex and interesting system that it can and should be considered only in complex, not to look separately at the head or heart.
– That is, the long-standing medical record confirms that it is necessary to treat not the disease, but the patient.
– This saying is indeed very old, but unfortunately, it is not always and not always guided. There is another medical saying, “Do not harm.” The interesting nuance of our work is that all the staff – doctors and nurses – have tried our treatment regimens on their own and therefore know full well patient’s feelings in a particular procedure. This is already a certain element of psychotherapy: after all, a person may be frightened of the unknown, and it is necessary for her to perceive the treatment calmly, trust the doctors.
Love for their patients, tolerance and patience, the ability to understand the luck of each of them – such traits must be inherent in every doctor. And for us, given the specificity of our patients, this is especially important. Because diseases related to the defeat of the vessels of the brain, often lead to the fact that a person changes dramatically. And what happiness when you help to return to normal life…
One of our patients, Alla Ch. from Lutsk, a 24-year-old woman, had multiple sclerosis as a complication after the flu. Today, this disease is very widespread in the Western Ukraine region. This severe ailment affects, first and foremost, young people and manifests itself in impaired movement. Not only patients become incapacitated, but they are not even able to serve themselves, adequately perceive reality, control their emotions. After Alla Ch. underwent the first treatment course, she appeared critical and self-controlled, her speech was restored, she was able to fill in our questionnaire by hand. However, there were still some difficulties in walking, but if you do not know about the disease, it seems that the woman is just a little lame.
For two years, Alla Ch. has been under our control. After a year of treatment, she completely restored working capacity, worked as a teacher. When Alla became pregnant, the doctors who followed her had considerable doubts about the fact that pregnancy and childbirth would be favorable and would not cause exacerbation of the mother’s illness, and they were also worried about the likelihood of hereditary diseases in the child. On the contrary, we, strictly controlling Alla’s condition, insisted on preserving the pregnancy, since we did not find in the body of the expectant mother any changes that would indicate a definite need to terminate the pregnancy. And now we have a holiday – Alla has a healthy baby, mother and son are feeling fine.
Vladimir F. (50 years old) has Parkinson’s disease. This ailment began to develop in him due to a decrease in blood flow in certain parts of the brain. It occurs mainly in older people (although nowadays it is also younger, like most diseases) and simply knocks people out of the rut, leading to changes in character. Now one of my students is working on studying and solving this problem.
– Ulyana Bogdanivna, how did you come to create your own treatment method of such diseases?
– The idea matured rather quickly, but it took some time to accumulate the experience, to test it and put it into practice. This technique is based on ultrasound examination of arterial and venous cerebral blood flow. On the screen there is a graph, and the vessels “tell” about themselves. Treatment consists of intravenous injections and blockages (blockages are also used to treat osteochondrosis – another of the current “diseases of the century”), we assign individually necessary drops and tablets. We try to influence the cause of the disease first. We actively involve elements of psychotherapy.
One of the main drugs we use is nicotinic acid. It has a very good vasodilator and venotonizing effect and is a kind of catalyst for other drugs, helping them to “get to their destination”. We use in our practice mostly known and not very expensive drugs such as ATP, lidase, euphilin, plasmol, etc.
– You can say that you use long-known drugs in unexpected and unconventional combinations?
–Exactly, it is.
– Please conclude with a few words about yourself at the end of our conversation.
– I was born in a beautiful, picturesque city of Ternopil in a family of doctors. I went through medicine in the very beginning – worked as a nurse. It was a good temper for future medical work. I graduated from Ternopil Medical Institute. Back in my student years, I felt an urge to do research work. By distribution, I came to Kyiv and here continued to seek my path in science.
– I think you found it.
– Yes, I found it, and very happy about that. When your work gives you pleasure, it is truly great happiness.
The conversation was conducted by Natalia Naboka
