12/18/2023 0 Comments Phenomena medical conditionįurther clues to the possible causes of the Capgras delusion were suggested by the study of brain-injured patients who had developed prosopagnosia. In one of the first papers to consider the cerebral basis of the Capgras delusion, Alexander, Stuss and Benson pointed out in 1979 that the disorder might be related to a combination of frontal lobe damage causing problems with familiarity and right hemisphere damage causing problems with visual recognition. It is generally agreed that the Capgras delusion has a complex and organic basis caused by structural damage to organs and can be better understood by examining neuroanatomical damage associated with the syndrome. His cognitive impairment ended up in a severe, all-encompassing frontal syndrome. Apart from, his neuropsychological presentation was hallmarked by language disturbances suggestive of frontal-executive dysfunction. Fred presented progressive cognitive deterioration characterised both by severity and fast decline. On her surprised answer that she was right there, he firmly denied that she was his wife Wilma, whom he "knew very well as his sons' mother", and went on plainly commenting that Wilma had probably gone out and would come back later. The first episode occurred one day when, after coming home, Fred asked her where Wilma was. Fred's wife reported that about 15 months from onset he began to see her as a "double" (her words). His past medical and psychiatric history was uneventful. He had worked as the head of a small unit devoted to energy research until a few months before. The following case is an instance of the Capgras delusion resulting from a neurodegenerative disease:įred, a 59-year-old man with a high school qualification, was referred for neurological and neuropsychological evaluation because of cognitive and behavioural disturbances. She easily recognised other family members and would misidentify her husband only. At times she believed her husband was her long deceased father. She refused to sleep with the impostor, locked her bedroom and door at night, asked her son for a gun, and finally fought with the police when attempts were made to hospitalise her. At the time of her admission earlier in the year, she had received the diagnosis of atypical psychosis because of her belief that her husband had been replaced by another unrelated man. D, a 74-year-old married housewife, recently discharged from a local hospital after her first psychiatric admission, presented to our facility for a second opinion. The following two case reports are examples of the Capgras delusion in a psychiatric setting: It occurs more frequently in females, with a female to male ratio of approximately 3∶2. In one isolated case, the Capgras delusion was temporarily induced in a healthy subject by the drug ketamine. It has also been reported as occurring in association with diabetes, hypothyroidism, and migraine attacks. It presents often in individuals with a neurodegenerative disease, particularly at an older age. The delusion most commonly occurs in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia but has also been seen in brain injury, dementia with Lewy bodies, and other dementia. Cases in which patients hold the belief that time has been "warped" or "substituted" have also been reported. It can occur in acute, transient, or chronic forms. The Capgras delusion is classified as a delusional misidentification syndrome, a class of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places, or objects. It is named after Joseph Capgras (1873–1950), the French psychiatrist who first described the disorder. Delusion that familiar people or pets have been replaced by identical imposters aggression with the person suspected as an imposterĬapgras delusion or Capgras syndrome is a psychiatric disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, another close family member, or pet has been replaced by an identical impostor.
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