Conversion disorder or multiple sclerosis?

Alannah Frazzetto, Prashant Tibrewal, Rohanjeet Dhillon, Tarun Bastiampillai, Joseph Harris

    Research output: Contribution to journalLetterpeer-review

    Abstract

    Conversion Disorder, also called Functional Neurological Symptom Disorder as per DSM-5, is a psychiatric illness characterised by involuntary neurological symptoms in the absence of organicity. Conversion disorder can be misdiagnosed, especially in high-pressure environments such as emergency departments (ED) given the stigma associated with mental illness. Earlier studies found the incidence of misdiagnosis to be as high as 4% (Stone et al., 2005), but more recent studies have reported it to be 0.23 to 1% (Fishbain and Goldberg, 1991). We present a case of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) misdiagnosed as Conversion Disorder and discuss the role of stigma.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)177-178
    Number of pages2
    JournalAsian Journal of Psychiatry
    Volume28
    Early online date31 May 2017
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Aug 2017

    Keywords

    • Conversion disorder
    • Multiple sclerosis
    • Functional neurological symptom disorder
    • Misdiagnosis

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Conversion disorder or multiple sclerosis?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this