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Delusion Parasitosis: Successful Non-pharmacological Treatment of a Folie-à-deux

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Norman D. Macaskill
Norman D. Macaskill*
Affiliation:
Whiteley Wood Clinic, Woofindin Road, Sheffield S10 3TL
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Extract

Delusional parasitosis, originally described by Ekbom in 1938, is an illness in which the individual believes small animals such as insects, lice, vermin, or maggots are living in or thriving on his/her skin. The delusion is not secondary to another psychiatric ill ness, and in general the personality remains otherwise preserved. Munro (1980) classifies delusional parasi tosis as a subtype of monosymptomatic hypochon driacal psychosis, and has shown that a substantial proportion of patients with MHP respond to pimozide. Prior to the introduction of that drug, the prognosis of the condition was held to be very poor.

Type
Brief Reports
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 150 , Issue 2 , February 1987 , pp. 261 - 263
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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References

Berrios, G. E. (1985) Delusional parasitosis and physical disease. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 26, 395–403.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ekbom, K. A. (1938) Der Presenile Dermatozoenwahn. Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavia, 13, 227–259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Munro, A. (1980) Mono-symptomatic hypochondriacal psychosis. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 24, 34–38.Google Scholar
Skott, A. (1978) Delusions of infestation. Reports from the Psychiatric Research Centre, No. 13. Sweden: St Jorgen Hospital.Google Scholar
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