Common Syndromes

• Metabolic syndrome (syndrome x, insulin resistance syndrome, Reaven’s syndrome): a combination of medical disorders that increase the risk of developing  atherosclerotic disease and type II diabetes mellitus. WHO-1999 criteria for metabolic syndrome include:
  • Presence of DM/impaired Glucose tolerance
  • BP > 140/90 mmHg
  • Dyslipidemia
  • Central obesity
  • Microalbiminuria
• Serotonin syndrome:  
  • a serious adverse effect of SSRIs and/or MAOIs characterized by a classic traid of mental status changes, neuromauscular abnormalities and autonomichyper activity. Patient may present with agitation, sweating, rigidity, hyperreflexia, myoclonus, tachycardia, and hypotension.
• Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome:
  • a serious complication of antipsychotics medications characterized by hyperthermia, rigidity, tachycardia, decreased level of consciousness, and elevated serum CPK-MB levels.
• Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSP):
  • a form of child abuse in which parents (usually mother) invent or directly induce their children’s illness or symptoms and seek medical assistance. Parents may report that their children had seizures or suffer from abdominal pain when their children are well.
• Rett’s syndrome:
  • A disorder reported in girls characterized by a period of apparent normal early development  and normal head circumference at birth, there is deceleration of head growth between the age of 5 months and 30 months and loss of purposive hand movements and acquired fine motor movements.
• Covarde syndrome:
  •  a conversion disorder seen in partners of expectant mothers during their pregnancy includes nausea, vomiting,  abdominal pain and food cravings.
• Cotard’s syndrome: a combination of severely depressed mood with nihilistic delusions and/or hypochondriacal delusions usually seen elderly.
• De Clerambault syndrome: erotomania or delusion of love usually seen in females.
• Ganser syndrome’ (Ganserism):  the production of approximate answers usually seen in criminals awaiting trial for serious offences
• Othello syndrome (Ey syndrome): a monosymptomatic delusional disorder where the core delusion has the content of delusional jealousy.
• Ekbon’s syndrome: a delusional belief that one’s skin is infested with multiple tiny mite like animals.
• Capgras syndrome: a type of delusional misidentification in which the patient believes that important people in one's life have been replaced by impostors.
• Syndrome of Fregoli: the pt. identifies a familiar person (usually his persecutor) in various strangers, who are therefore fundamentally the same individual.
• Diogenes syndrome: hoarding of objects usually of no practical use and neglect of one’s home or environment.
• Stockholm syndrome: is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and have positive feelings towards their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them.
• Klein- Levin syndrome (KLS):
  • This is a sleep-related  syndrome characterized by hypersomnia, hyperphagia and hypersexuality.
• Shaken-Baby syndrome:
  • A condition in which fatal injuries from child abuse characterized by retinal hemorrhage and intracranial injury. It occurs when parents or other care givers violently shake infants by their extremities or shoulders, usually out of frustration and rage over the child’s incessant crying.
• Tourette’s syndrome:
  • A disorder characterized by multiple motor tics, multiple vocal tics , coprolalia and copropraxia.
• Restless-Leg syndrome (RLS) (Eckbom syndrome)
  • RLS is a sleep-related disorder characterized by an experience of uncomfortable feeling on the leg muscles on awakening from sleep, which sometimes resemble painful creeping sensations deep inside the calf muscles.
• Pickwickian syndrome
  • sleep apnea in elderly obese.
• Asperger’s syndrome:
• Stiff-person syndrome;
• Sturge-Weber syndrome
• Angelman (“happy puppet”) syndrome:
• Autoscopic syndrome;
• Down’s syndrome:
• Turner’s syndrome;
• Culture-bound syndrome:
• Aicardi syndrome:

References

1. Psychiatry, Third Edition. Edited by Allan Tasman, Jerald Kay, Jeffrey A. Lieberman, Michael B. First and Mario Maj. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2008.
2. Sims, A. Symptoms in the Mind: An Introduction to Descriptive Psychopathology (3rd ed). Elsevier, 2002.
3. Fish, F. Clinical Psychopathology, Signs and Symptoms in Psychiatry. Bristol: J. Wright & Sons. 1967.

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