PubMed Health⌕ Search

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Conversion Disorder”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources
PubMed1990

Conversion disorders in childhood: a retrospective follow-up study of 84 inpatients.

The medical histories of 84 children who had been diagnosed as having conversion disorder were reviewed in a follow-up study, and the validity of this diagnosis was examined. The female:male ratio was 2.1:1, although below the age of 10 the ratio was almost equal. The medical histories of 62 per cent of the patients showed an organic illness, and 51 per cent had various slight to moderate EEG disturbances. The validity of the diagnosis was very high: only five were found to have organic disease during the follow-up period. Children with symptoms of conversion disorder should receive appropriate medical investigations, but the authors question whether extensive investigations could not be replaced by screening tests, combined with early psychiatric intervention.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Conversion disorder and multiple chemical sensitivity: a comparative study of psychological defense strategies.

This study compared psychological defensive strategies in two groups of patients with multiple chemical sensitivity (n = 10) and conversion disorder (n = 10) by means of the projective perceptual Defense Mechanism Test. We attempted to create a model for personality assessment based on the test data of prior patients, in which new patients could successively be tested. The overall results indicated that it was possible to separate the clinical groups significantly from a control group and from each other. In comparison to the controls, the clinical groups were characterized by patterns that were more nonemotionally adapted as well by a lateness of perception, but the ways in which the clinical groups maintained this difference were not the same. The multiple chemical sensitivity group was characterized above all by blocking maneuvers, while the main defensive strategy of the conversion disorder group was distortion of content.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Illness behavior in the acute phase of motor disability in neurological disease and in conversion disorder: a comparative study.

Sixty patients with a sudden onset of motor disability were assessed for illness behavior and depression. In 30 of the patients, etiology was attributed to a definite structural lesion. The remaining 30 patients were diagnosed as having conversion disorder. The Illness Behaviour Questionnaire (IBQ) and the Hamilton Rating Depression Scale (HRDS) were used as instruments for assessment. The mean HRDS score was significantly higher in the conversion group, indicating a higher degree of affective disease in these patients. According to the results of the IBQ, the patients with conversion disorder showed a higher degree of irritability, disease conviction, and phobic preoccupation, and also, to a greater extent, rejected psychological explanations for their symptoms. Denial was high in both patient groups, coexisting with affective symptoms in the conversion patients but not in the neurological patients. Although valuable information could be extracted from the IBQ, it was not found to be a reliable instrument for distinguishing between psychogenic and organic causes of motor disability.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1997

Conversion disorders in adolescents: a practical approach to rehabilitation.

Young people with conversion disorders require a different treatment approach compared with those who have organic illness. This paper describes a team approach which is based on detailed assessment, explanation of the vicious cycle, accepting the patient's symptoms, working towards achievable goals, encouraging bravery, rewarding 'wellness' behaviour, ignoring abnormal behaviour and supervising re-integration into school.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

A case of bilateral ptosis with unsteady gait: suggestibility and culture in conversion disorder.

We report a case of a 14-year-old girl who presented, following a sudden onset, with bilateral ptosis, gait disturbance, difficulty swallowing and loss of appetite, right hypochondriacal pain, and frontal headache. Protracted neurological and medical examinations were unremarkable; neither was precipitating psychological stresses evident. The condition, which manifest as typical conversion disorder, lasted for one year. "Treatment" involving electrical stimulation of both eyes muscles and legs with positive reassurance resolved the symptom. This case supports the view that conversion disorder, not only involves a strong element of suggestion, but also incorporates socio-cultural sanctioned prescription.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Conversion disorders in childhood and adolescence: a psychiatric consultation study in a general hospital.

From March 1986 to April 1995, 418 consecutive psychiatric consultations for patients aged 18 or below were completed. Ten of these patients met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th. edition (DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria for a conversion disorder. The medical and psychiatric consultation records of these patients were reviewed. Chief conversion symptoms included pseudoseizure (four cases), gait disturbance (two cases), abnormal movement (one case), four limbs weakness (one case), aphonia (one case) and tunnel vision (one case). The psychosocial problems of the patients included family problems (seven cases), interpersonal problems (two case) and concurrent physical illness (one case). Six patients (60%) manifested complete remission and others showed improvement of the symptoms.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Lower extremity paralysis after operative laparoscopy from conversion disorder. A case report.

BACKGROUND: Neurologic complications are rarely associated with laparoscopic procedures, and most nerve injuries are transient palsies. We present the first case of paraplegia following gynecologic laparoscopy. CASE: A 34-year-old woman, gravida 2, para 0-1-1-0, with long-standing infertility, underwent an uncomplicated laparoscopic ovarian cystectomy for a persistent ovarian cystadenoma. In the immediate postoperative period, the patient developed bilateral lower extremity paralysis. She regained her sensorimotor function in one extremity within hours, while both motor and sensory functions, but not proprioception, were deficient in the other extremity in a pattern of distribution that was inconsistent and paradoxical. Diagnostic studies to evaluate the patient's central and peripheral nervous systems and evoked sensory potentials were all normal. The patient's indifference to her persistent yet paradoxical neurologic deficits was a clue to her diagnosis. In the absence of an organic lesion to account for the patient's symptoms, the diagnosis of conversion disorder was made. CONCLUSION: Neurologic complications following laparoscopy are rare, generally involving nerve palsies from local injury. This is the first report of lower extremity paralysis after laparoscopy. Although conversion disorder is rare, it may occur in the gynecologic setting owing to its prevalence in women and especially in the presence of underlying affective disorders.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Healing the disembodied mind: contemporary models of conversion disorder.

The cartesian separation of body and mind has underpinned medical conceptualization of conversion symptoms over the last four centuries. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century models explained conversion symptoms on the basis of assumed organic lesions. Subsequent psychological formulations focused on mental phenomena, which were disembodied from underlying neurobiological processes. Contemporary theories challenge this disconnection. They place conversion symptoms within an evolutionary framework, arguing that mind is embodied in physical processes and confers significant survival advantage. Current neurobiological models explain conversation symptoms as part of the human emotional response to threat, reflecting either errors in how information about body state is processes and represented, or the motor component of an automatic emotional response. Patients with conversion disorder experience their body functions in a range of distressing and disturbing ways. In order to understand these phenomena, clinicians require conceptual models that expand the conventional dualistic mind-body paradigm, integrate multiple theoretical perspectives, and take into account environmental factors that shape evolutionary and individual development.

Conversion Disorder↗
PubMed2006

Transcranial magnetic stimulation in motor conversion disorder: a short case series.

The neurophysiologic mechanisms involved in nonorganic paralysis are unclear. Because there is no established standard therapy, the authors investigated the effect of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in four patients with nonorganic limb paralysis. Within the framework of a treatment trial, the patients were treated over a period of 5-12 weeks with rTMS applied to the contralateral motor cortex. Stimulation frequency was 15 Hz, train length 2 seconds, intertrain interval 4 seconds; daily total number of stimuli 4000. In one patient, motor function was completely restored; two patients experienced a marked improvement correlating with rTMS treatment. By contrast, one patient who had been diagnosed as a malingerer did not improve. Apart from possible favorable psychological factors that could partly explain the rTMS-associated effects, high-frequency rTMS might have enhanced or substituted an insufficient input to the motor cortex from failing frontal executive areas, and thereby opened the way to a learning process that lead to the reacquisition of limb use. rTMS may have a therapeutic effect in motor conversion disorder and may help elucidate neurophysiologic aspects of this condition. The potential benefit of rTMS in motor conversion disorder should be evaluated in larger, controlled samples.

Adult↗
PubMed1995

Outcome in conversion disorder: a follow up study.

Fifty six patients who had been admitted with a conversion disorder other than pseudoseizures were interviewed; mostly by telephone. The median interval was 4.5 years. If a patient had improved during a stay in hospital the eventual outcome was good in 96%, against only 30% in the others (risk ratio 3.2 (95% CI 1.8-5.6)). Rapid improvement was, in turn, related to recent onset of the symptoms. Two patients (4%) subsequently developed an organic deficit that, in retrospect, might be related to the initial episode.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

The misdiagnosis of conversion disorder in a psychiatric emergency service.

During a 1-year period, 8400 patient presentations to a psychiatric emergency service were screened for the conversion symptom of extremity paresis/paralysis. Of 4220 unduplicated presentations, three patients had this complaint. These cases were reviewed and followed up. All had received a DSM-III diagnosis of conversion disorder, but in each case the patient's conversion symptom was attributed to organic disease. This had medicolegal consequences in one case and threatened legal consequences in the others. Although the frequency of this alleged conversion symptom was 0.07%, in reality it was 0.0%. Guidelines for the management of the alleged conversion symptom of paresis/paralysis are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2004

Case study: camptocormia, a rare conversion disorder.

Camptocormia is a condition characterized by severe frontal flexion of the spinal cord and knees, with passive drooping of both arms. It occurs as a form of conversion disorder. Some cases are associated with behavioral problems. A case of camptocormia of 2-year duration in a south Indian adolescent girl with oppositional defiant disorder and moderate mental retardation is reported.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

The question of symptom lateralization in conversion disorder.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not conversion symptoms are lateralized. Studies have shown a predominant left-oriented manifestation of symptoms for most somatoform disorders. The reports in the literature on the lateralization of conversion symptoms, however, are rather conflicting. They show left-sided, right-sided, or no symptom lateralization in conversion disorders. METHODS: One hundred fourteen patients with conversion disorder were screened for symptom lateralization. RESULTS: Those patients with unilateral symptoms (32.5%) showed no significant bias toward left or right symptom presentation. CONCLUSION: Based on these results, and the conflicting findings from previous studies, we conclude that there is insufficient support for lateralization theories in conversion disorder.

Adolescent↗