To the Editor: Delusional parasitosis (DP) (Ekbom syndrome, psychogenic parasitosis, chronic tactile hallucinosis) is a false but unshakable conviction of personal infection by ‘bugs’ of some sort; that is, ectoor endoparasites or other pathogens. This condition may be increasing in frequency, but the subject is virtually absent from the South African medical literature. Failure to diagnose DP ...

The body of knowledge on delusional parasitosis incriminates “delusional patients” as having imaginary external and/or internal symptoms that feel like parasite movements, dismisses them as psychiatric cases, and confuses cause with effect. The author is critical of these arguments and believes that the symptoms of crawling and pin-pricking are genuine; just misinterpreted as parasite movements...

Accessible online at: www.karger.com/psp In delusional parasitosis a patient believes that he is infested with parasites or other small living organisms even though there is no supporting medical evidence. The disorder has been known for well over 100 years and has been given many different names. It is quite rare, occurring in 20 out of 10,000 psychiatric admissions [1–3], but the majority of ...

The false and fixed belief of being infected/infested by one or many different living organisms, such as insects or parasites, is not a common condition. Although several cases have been recorded since the end of the nineteenth century, it was the Swedish psychiatrist Karl-Axel Ekbom who first systematically studied the presenile syndrome of delusional dermatozoid parasitic infestation in 1938 ...

The body of knowledge on delusional parasitosis incriminates “delusional patients” as having imaginary external and/or internal symptoms that feel like parasite movements, dismisses them as psychiatric cases, and confuses cause with effect. We are critical of these arguments and believe that the symptoms of crawling and pin-pricking are genuine; just misinterpreted as parasite movements. Based ...

The body of knowledge on delusional parasites is incriminates “delusional patients” as having imaginary external and internal symptoms that feel like parasite movements, dismisses them as psychiatric cases, and confuses cause with effect. We are critical of these arguments and believe that the symptoms of crawling and pin-pricking are genuine; just misinterpreted as parasite movements. Based on...