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Catatonia: the Tension Insanity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

John Johnson
John Johnson*
Affiliation:
University Hospital of South Manchester
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Abstract

A historical review of Kahlbaum's Catatonia is presented. He attributed the condition to organic cerebral disease. It is now best considered as a neuropsychiatric syndrome due to a wide variety of organic disease processes, manifest in catelepsy in a setting of an abnormal mental state, most commonly an affective disorder. Chronic catatonic states were common sequelae of encephalitis lethargica; this disease has now disappeared in epidemic form with a resulting fall in the incidence of catatonia in psychiatric hospitals. Acute catatonia, due to medical and particularly pharmacogenic causes, continues to occur in current psychiatric practice.

Type
Lecture
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 162 , Issue 6 , June 1993 , pp. 733 - 738
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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