Schizophrenic Pseudo Pseudo Dementia - a Case Report

Pseudodementia is a syndrome in which dementia is mimicked or caricatured by functional psychiatric disorders (Wells 1979). Madden et al. (1952) reported that symptoms ordinarily considered to indicate dementia could be reversed with appropriate psychiatric interventions and that such pseudo-dementia was present in 10% of their series. The first description of a pseudo-dementing illness can be dated back to Ganser (1898). Patients who manifest pseudodementia are in danger not only of therapeutic but also of superflows and possibly harmful diagnostic procedures (Kiloh 1961). This clinical profile has been described in affective disorders, hysteria and other neurosis, schizophrenia, post-traumatic states, malingering and Ganser state (Carney 1983). In depression while Kramer (1982) uses the term pseudodementia, Folstein and McHugh (1978) refer to it as the dementia syndrome of depression.