Catatonia

Catatonia ( altgr. κατά, from top to bottom ' and τόνος, (An ) voltage ', together ie, tension from head to toe ') is a psychomotor syndrome. Occurrence it can be used as a side effect of mental illnesses such as severe depression and especially catatonic schizophrenia, metabolic disorders, effects of alcohol and other drugs, but also in neurological diseases and infections, such as HIV.

Catatonia manifests itself in unnatural, cramped strong attitudes of the whole body; there are the following terms relevant:

• Stupor ( rigidity of the whole body )
• Mutism ( persistent silence )
• Bizarre Haltungsstereotypien
• Flexibilitas cerea ( waxy resistance of the muscles during passive movement )
• Negativism ( resistance to all requests or attempts to move - or rather movements that perform the opposite of the prompt)
• Catalepsy ( keeping the body position after passive movement )

The disease variant is life-threatening because of the lack of water and food intake.

The first to describe the disease was Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum (1828-1899), psychiatrist and owner of a private sanatorium for nervous and emotional ill in Görlitz.

The catatonic schizophrenia, a subtype of " group of schizophrenias " ( Eugen Bleuler, 1911), is accompanied by disturbances of motor function, which may alternate agitation and passivity between the extremes.

Therapy

• Psycho Pharmacologically with GABAergic substances, including lorazepam
• Selective treatment of the underlying mental disorder, for example, with antipsychotics in schizophrenic or antidepressants in depressive disorders
• Electroconvulsive therapy is indicated for the treatment of treatment-resistant catatonia, as well as first-line treatment in pernicious catatonia.