Anushka Shetty, Star of ‘Bahubali’, Faces Rare’Laughing Disease’

Actress Anushka Shetty has starred in prominent movies like Bahubali and Arundhati. In a recent interview, she came forward with her struggle with the Pseudobulbar effect, signifying how it had impacted her daily life.

What is the Pseudobulbar effect?

It is a rare disorder where outer emotions do not comply with inner feelings. Laughing and crying episodes are too long to cause an inappropriate reaction or put a hiatus on the ongoing task.

Symptoms for Pseudobulbar affect

The most common symptom of pseudobulbar affect is when your feelings don’t align with the mood. This can be continuous and uncontrollable laughter over a humorous thing; while other people can get back to normal, a person with the pseudobulbar effect cannot control his/ her laughter.

Similarly, it applies to sad situations when unstoppable crying can occur by any trigger, the trigger can be for a few moments for others while a person with this disorder cannot stop crying sometimes even for half an hour.

Apart from this, the reaction can be inappropriate and does not align with the environmental effect, for instance in a happy situation, this disorder can make a person cry even if he or she is not feeling too sad to cry. The third situation applies to how a person with this disorder can give an intense reaction without even any trigger of happiness or sadness.

What causes the Pseudobulbar effect?

It is a neurological condition. Brain injury or ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Alzheimer’s disease, brain tumours, stroke, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, etc can be the conditions that have a maximum number of people associated with this disorder.

Any condition that causes a disturbance in the neural network linked with the area of the brain that is responsible for expressions of emotions, especially the region for the cerebro-ponto-cerebellar pathway. Along with this, neurotransmitters like dopamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin can also contribute significantly to this.

Prevalence for Pseudobulbar affect

The worldwide prevalence ranges from 11-34%. In India and other developing countries, there are quite fewer of cases of Pseudobulbar since it is misdiagnosed or due to a gap between mental health services.

Diagnosis

The pseudobulbar effect is one of the most misdiagnosed disorders, often misinterpreted as bipolar or depression. For instance, if too much crying is witnessed without a reason, depression is the most sought-after diagnosis. Currently, no standard criteria are available to diagnose this disorder, though various checklists are available.

Is the Pseudobulbar Effect curable?

The disorder cannot be cured, instead managed by reducing the frequency of uncontrollable outbursts. Medications like quinidine sulphate are advised along with some anti-depressants. Observing and classification of triggers can help deal with episodes of pseudobulbar effect.

Moreover, a disorder becomes an obstruction when it impairs our life, be it personally, socially, or occupationally. Impairment in these areas of functioning can affect daily life. For instance, Anushka Shetty signified how her shooting was delayed for approximately half an hour when her episode became uncontrollable with a scene posing a funny or sad situation.

Awareness about the symptoms to screen out the disorder is the first step since most of the cases get ignored or misinterpreted as other mental health issues. Customized lifestyle to suit personal needs avowing the trigger can be then implemented.