Factitious disorders presenting as acute emergencies.

Factitious disorders presenting as acute emergencies.

responses to, or refractoriness to, standard therapy. Also, doctors are unlikely to diagnose factitious illness until all other diagnostic possibilities have been exhausted. It is highly likely that the true incidence of factitious illness is underestimated,1 partly as doctors are generally unwilling victims of deception. The term Munchausen syndrome was applied by Dr Richard Asher to a group o...

Coeliac disease presenting as acute bleeding disorders.

Case I A previously well, 27-year-old woman was admitted to an acute haematology unit with multiple severe bruising. For 3 months before admission she had been having vague colicky abdominal pain with pale, bulky, offensive stools which were difficult to flush away. She had lost 9 5 kg in weight. Two weeks before admission she had developed spontaneous bruising of her limbs. She had no melaena ...

Malingering and Factitious Disorders

Diabetic ketoacidosis presenting as neurosurgical emergencies.

Three cases of ketoacidosis in previously unsuspected diabetics are described. Each was admitted to hospital as a neurosurgical emergency. The recognition of this rare presentation is stressed since prompt treatment of the metabolic disturbance rapidly resolves the neurological abnormality.

Factitious Disorders and Malingering

Patients may present to the emergency department with symptoms that are simulated or intentionally produced. The reasons that cause this behavior define two distinct varieties: factitious disorders and malingering. Factitious disorders are characterized by symptoms or signs that are intentionally produced or feigned by the patient in the absence of apparent external incentives. Factitious disor...