Pseudodementia and ECT.
The author presents six cases of pseudodementia of varying degrees of severity that illustrate the difficulty in making purely clinical diagnoses of pseudodementia and demonstrate the usefulness of ECT in this condition in treatment-resistant patients. In addition, issues of cerebral laterality are raised by one case in which the patient paradoxically regressed to a preference for an acquired language (English) while pseudodemented and reverted to her native tongue (Spanish) after remission, with preservation of her ability to speak English.
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000628:therapy; D003704:Dementia / Q000628:therapy; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000628:therapy; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004565:Electroconvulsive Therapy; D005162:Factitious Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008875:Middle Aged