Off-Beat-News
7 bizarre disorders that actually exist─── 12:34 Thu, 09 Jul 2015
Wait, what?!
1. The Capgras Delusion
Patients who are diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia often experience this delusion. However, the Capgras delusion has also been identified in patients suffering from dementia and brain injury. The delusion is often linked towards medical conditions such as diabetes, hypothyroidism and migraine attacks. It occurs more frequently in females, with a female:male ratio of 3:2.
2. Alien Hand Syndrome
3. Self-Cannibalism
4. Aboulomania
Many sufferers say their incapacity or chronic indecision originates from the need for 100% certainty – it can therefore be understood that, according to LSR Psychology, the sufferer can become paralyzed in the inability to fulfill his own free will when confronted with more than one choice. The condition has often been associated with depressive and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
6. Erotomania
7. Foreign Accent Syndrome
The Capgras delusion, otherwise known as Capgras syndrome, is a disorder in which a person holds a delusion that a friend, spouse, parent, or other close family member (or pet) has been replaced by an imposter that looks exactly as the person they once identified with.
The Capgras delusion is classified as a delusional misidentification syndrome - which is a form of delusional beliefs that involves the misidentification of people, places, or objects. Many cases in which patients claim or believe that time has been ‘warped’ or ‘substituted’ have been reported.
Alien hand syndrome (AHS) is a rare neurological disorder that causes hand movement without the person being aware of what is happening or having control over the action. The person affected by this syndrome may reach for objects and manipulate them without wanting to do so – this often results in the person having to use the healthy hand to restrain the alien hand.
Alien hand syndrome is best seen in a person in which the two hemispheres of their brain are surgically separated - a procedure which is used to relieve the symptoms of extreme cases of epilepsy.
Alien hand syndrome often occurs in some cases after brain surgery, stroke, infection, tumor, aneurysm and specific degenerative brain conditions such as Alzheimer's disease and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome is a disorder in which a person exhibits self-mutilating behavior or less commonly the consumption of his own body parts in a rare condition called autosarcophagy. The syndrome affects the joints, brain and muscles of the sufferer as a result of the overproduction of uric acid in the body, which eventually leads to compulsive lip and finger biting in the majority of cases. In 60 percent of cases, patients have to have their teeth removed to prevent them from biting off their lips, cheeks and tongues. The condition occurs most often and somewhat exclusively in boys and it has been related to impulse control disorders in general. The condition ranges from mild to life threatening.
Although this mental disorder is generally unknown, it is vital to understand that this mental disorder is characterized by crippling indecision, or as psychiatrists term it, “paralysis of the will.” Those who suffer from aboulomania appear physically and mentally normal in all aspects of life. However, when sufferers are faced with simple life choices like going for a walk or choosing a movie to watch, they are faced into major psychological problems to the point of experiencing anxiety and difficulty regaining normal function.
5. Alice In Wonderland Syndrome
Although this bizarre condition is named Micropsia, it's more often referred to as the Alice In Wonderland Syndrome.
This condition is a visual neurological disease, where a patient sees an object much smaller than it really is in real life – which according to the Medical Journal of Psychiatry can be described as though they were looking at the world “through the wrong end of a telescope”.
The illness is not caused by any deficiency of the eye, but rather how the brain interprets the information received from the eyes. Migraines are said to be an important cause and feature of this disorder, which can also affect a person’s other senses such as hearing and touch. This illness is known to affect mostly children aged between five and 10. The illness has more so been linked to other conditions such as: schizophrenia, psychoactive drugs and brain tumors.
Those who suffer from Erotomania take infatuation to a completely different level. Those who suffer from this mental disorder hold a delusional belief that a person generally from a high social status, such as a celebrity, is madly in love with them and making advances toward them through special glances, signals, telepathy or messages through the media. The patient then returns the alleged assumed affection by letters or attempting to visit the recipient.
What’s rather scary regarding this disorder is the fact that the patient’s feeling is so overwhelming - even when the perceived lover directly denies any sentiment of affection or the advances are clearly unwanted, the person remains unconvinced. Thus making the delusion difficult to break. The condition is often confused with obsessive love.
Foreign Accent Syndrome, as it is called, is a rather rare disorder characterized by the sudden and unexpected appearance of a seemingly “foreign” accent - which often occurs after some form of brain injury, such as a stroke or head injury. The sufferer will begin speaking his/her native language in a foreign tongue. There have been 50 recorded cases of this syndrome, which is said to have no clear cause or cure, since the 1940s. The condition can last a few hours or become permanent.
Compiled by Carla Franco, the awesome first year Rhodes University student visiting OFM News.
