Observations placeholder
Hallucinations from chicken pox virus
Identifier
006947
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The virus was causing her to lose her sight.
Ganser syndrome is "a rare dissociative disorder previously classified as a factitious disorder. It is characterized by nonsensical or wrong answers to questions or doing things incorrectly, other dissociative symptoms such as fugue, amnesia or conversion disorder, often with visual hallucinations and a decreased state of consciousness. It is also sometimes called nonsense syndrome, balderdash syndrome, syndrome of approximate answers, pseudodementia, hysterical pseudodementia or prison psychosis. This last name, prison psychosis, is sometimes used because the syndrome occurs most frequently in prison inmates"
A description of the experience
BMJ Case Rep. 2011 Mar 1;2011. pii: bcr0620103072. doi: 10.1136/bcr.06.2010.3072. Ganser's syndrome subsequent to ophthalmic herpes zoster in an elderly woman. Vasudev A1, Vasudev K. Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada. akshyavasudev@yahoo.com
A case of a 79-year-old woman, who was admitted to a hospital subsequent to a mechanical fall and ophthalmic herpes zoster infection, is presented.
She also presented with features of giving approximate answers, fluctuating consciousness, somatic conversion symptoms and probable hallucinations.
A presumptive diagnosis of Ganser's syndrome was made. The patient made nearly a full recovery from the above symptoms in about 3 months. However, she continued to have cognitive impairment for which a further diagnosis of vascular cognitive impairment was offered.
PMID: 22707599
The source of the experience
PubMedConcepts, symbols and science items
Concepts
Symbols
Science Items
Activities and commonsteps
Activities
Overloads
ShinglesVaricella Zoster Virus