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Brain and nerves
Roro me akaaka

Bell's palsy

Bell's palsy is a temporary weakness of the face due to damage to a nerve that controls the facial muscles.

Chronic fatigue syndrome

Chronic fatigue syndrome is a debilitating, long-term illness that affects many systems in the body. It is also called myalgic encephalomyelitis or ME/CFS. It can affect people of all ages and ethnic and socio-economic groups. Women are more likely to be diagnosed with it than men.

Chronic (persistent) pain

If pain lasts for more than 3 months or longer than the expected healing time, it is called chronic or persistent pain. In medicine, the word chronic means long-lasting.

Dementia

Dementia is the name for symptoms caused by different diseases that affect the brain. Alzheimer's disease is one of the most common types.

Delirium

Delirium is a temporary state of confusion. It is a serious condition but usually has an underlying cause.

Epilepsy

People with epilepsy have seizures that are caused by brief abnormal electrical activity in their brains.

Essential tremor

Essential tremor (also called familial or benign tremor) is an uncontrollable shaking of part of the body. It can run in families and can get worse with age.

Fatigue

Fatigue is the feeling of being tired all the time, even after you have rested. It is different from the feeling of sleepiness you get at bedtime, or tiredness after exercise or a late night.

Functional neurological disorder (FND)

A disorder of the way your nervous system functions (works).

Guillain-Barré syndrome

Guillain-Barré syndrome is a disorder where your body's immune system attacks the covering of certain nerves (called the myelin sheath). This causes damage to the nerves.

Headache

Headaches are very common. Most headaches do not have a serious cause and will go away over time.

Head injuries and concussion

Head injury first aid, head injuries in adults.

Memory loss and mild cognitive impairment

Forgetfulness and memory loss are relatively common in older people. Some people also develop mild cognitive impairment if they have problems with language, thinking, and judgement.

Motor neurone disease

Motor neurones are nerves that control your body movement. With motor neurone disease, something goes wrong with these nerves and messages from your brain cannot get through to your muscles.

Multiple sclerosis

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects your central nervous system. It causes scarring (sclerosis) on your nerves or damage to the nerve fibres themselves. This can interrupt the signals between your brain and your body, and cause a range of symptoms.

Pain after shingles (postherpetic neuralgia)

Some people who have had shingles go on to have pain that lasts for months or years after the rash has gone. The medical term for this is postherpetic neuralgia.

Parkinson disease

Parkinson disease is a neurological condition, which means it affects your brain and nervous system, and movement in particular.

Peripheral neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy means there is damage to one or more of the nerves around your body. Your brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) are not involved.

Restless legs syndrome

Restless legs syndrome is a problem where you feel the need to move your legs due to uncomfortable or unpleasant feelings in them. The symptoms are usually worse in the evening or at night. This can cause you problems getting to sleep and staying asleep.

Stroke

When you have a bleed or a blood clot blocking the blood supply to part of your brain. The effects of a stroke depend on which part of your brain is affected.

Transient ischaemic attacks

A warning stroke or mini-stroke. It is very serious and you should not ignore it.

Trigeminal neuralgia

Trigeminal neuralgia is a pain condition affecting the nerves that control the feeling on each side of your face (trigeminal nerves). It affects women more often than men and is more likely to occur over the age of 50.

Ulnar nerve compression

The ulnar nerve travels down the inside of your arm, around the inside of your elbow and finishes on the little-finger side of your hand. When it is damaged or compressed, it affects the strength and feeling you have in your hand, and sometimes your arm.