a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member has been replaced by an identical-looking impostor. it is classified as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places, or objects. it can occur in acute, transient, or chronic forms. cases in which patients hold the belief that time has been “warped” or “substituted” have also been reported.
the delusion is most common in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, although it can occur in connection with a number of conditions, including brain injury and dementia. it has also been reported as occuring in association with diabetes, hypothyroidism and migraine attacks. it occurs more frequently in females, with a female:male ratio of 3:2.
an autism spectrum disorder that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. it differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development. although not required for diagnosis, physical clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported.
gary numan, after a series of outbursts in which he would “smash things up, scream and shout, get in people’s faces and break stuff”, was prescribed antidepressants and anxiolytics at age 15.
in a 2001 interview, he said: “polite conversation has never been one of my strong points. just recently i actually found out that i’d got a mild form of asperger’s syndrome which basically means i have trouble interacting with people. for years, i couldn’t understand why people thought i was arrogant, but now it all makes more sense.”
a condition in which a patient is aware and awake but cannot move or communicate verbally due to complete paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes. total locked-in syndrome is a version of locked-in syndrome where the eyes are paralyzed as well. it is the result of a brain stem lesion in which the ventral (anterior) part of the pons is damaged. the term for this disorder was coined by fred plum and posner in 1966. in french, the common term is ‘maladie de l’emmuré vivant’, literally translated as “walled-in-alive disease”; in german, it is sometimes called ‘eingeschlossensein’. locked-in syndrome is also known as cerebromedullospinal disconnection, de-efferented state, pseudocoma, and ventral pontine syndrome.
or labile affect (more informally emotional incontinence) refers to a neurologic disorder characterized by involuntary crying or uncontrollable episodes of crying and/or laughing, or other emotional displays. pba occurs secondary to neurologic disease or brain injury. patients may find themselves crying uncontrollably at something that is only moderately sad, being unable to stop themselves for several minutes. episodes may also be mood-incongruent: a patient might laugh uncontrollably when angry or frustrated, for example.
the symptoms can be severe, with persistent and unremitting episodes, characteristics include:
- the onset can be sudden and unpredictable, and has been described by some patients as coming on like a seizure;
- the outburst have a typical duration of 30 seconds to 4 minutes;
- outbursts happen typically 4-5 episodes a day; however many patients experience as many as 40-50 episodes per week.
