Malignant catatonia is an unusual and highly fatal neuropsychiatric condition which can present with clinical and biochemical manifestations similar to those of pheochromocytoma. Differentiating between the two diseases is essential as management options greatly diverge. We describe a case of malignant catatonia in a 20-year-old male who presented with concurrent psychotic symptoms and autonomi...

C atatonia is a motor dysregulation syndrome among psychiatric asylum patients that was delineated in 1874. The syndrome was so well characterized that within a few years its prevalence among psychiatric populations was reported from 6% to 38%, averaging 15% of hospitalized patients in the years since. In the mid–20th century, as psychiatric practice shifted from the asylum to the ambulatory cl...

We report two serious and unusual complications of benzodiazepine withdrawal in a single patient: takotsubo cardiomyopathy and catatonia. This 61-year-old female patient was brought to the emergency department with lethargy and within hours had declined into a state of catatonia. Although there was never a complaint of chest pain, ECG showed deep anterior T-wave inversions and cardiac enzymes w...

Catatonia is a psychomotor syndrome with motor and behavioral abnormalities which may be due to alterations in fronto-parietal cortical function. We therefore investigated neuropsychological tasks (attention, executive, visual-spatial, working memory) associated with frontal and parietal cortical function. Thirteen catatonic patients, diagnosed as catatonic according to criteria by Rosebush and...

Although catatonia is a well defined syndrome, the treatment of chronic catatonia remains an unresolved issue. Here, we report a successful treatment of a 30-year-old patient with treatment-resistant catatonic schizophrenia in 10 years by augmentation of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).We present a 30-year-old man with treatment-resistant catatonic schizophrenia who failed to re...

Periodic catatonia (PC) is a rare type of catatonia syndrome, in which the catatonic phases often repeat regularly. Between the catatonic periods, the symptoms totally disappear and make the diagnosis difficult. We report a case with PC who did not show any catatonic symptoms except anxiety and restlessness in his first referral to the hospital. Although it was reported that he showed the sympt...

Catatonia, while not a rare occurrence in bipolar disorder, has not been widely discussed in the literature. We present a case of a married Caucasian male with a history of bipolar disorder, exhibiting catatonia and experiencing difficulty in day-to-day functioning. He demonstrated impairment in cognition and an inability to organize simple activities of daily life. After exhausting a number of...

The aim of this research was to investigate the Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) selective inhibition effect on haloperidol-induced catatonia. In this study, the effect of orally, acutely and Sub-chronically administrations of compound 11b [1-(phenyl)-5-(4-methylsulfonylphenyl)-2-ethylthioimidazole] (2, 4 and 8 mg/kg), a newly selective COX-2 inhibitor, was investigated against the haloperidol-induced ...

Since its initial description by Kahlbaum (1828-1899) over a century ago, catatonia has been associated with psychiatric, neurologic, and medical disorders. Contemporary authors view catatonia as a syndrome of motor signs in association with disorders of mood, behavior, or thought. Some motor features are classic but infrequent (eg, echopraxia, waxy flexibility) while others are common in psych...