Factitious torsion dystonia in rehabilitation: a singular new case and literature review.
We report a case of a 29-year-old woman suffering from chronic factitious disorder (FD) with torsion dystonia. For nearly five years, she traveled widely over the country, going from one hospital to another, taking serious medical risk in order to prolong her illness. After several admissions to Rehabilitation Units and multiple explorations, we find convincing evidence for factitious origin and the diagnosis of Munchausen syndrome was evoked. Such a clinical presentation is infrequent in Munchausen's syndrome. Indeed, most often the clinical picture is characterized by acute abdominal pain, fainting, hemoptysis, precordialgia, hematemesis or dermatological lesions. Physicians should be aware of this rare and potentially critical form of FD. Awareness in identifying these patients may lead to prevent unnecessary medical and/or surgical interventions.
Regional Institute of Rehabilitation, Nancy, France. jeanmarie.beis@irr.u-nancy.fr
Jean-Marie
JM
Beis
Nadine
N
Bertoni
Marie-Eve
ME
Isner-Horobeti
Matthieu
M
Kandel
Didier
D
Mainard
Noel
N
Martinet
Loïc Le
LL
Chapelain
Jean
J
Paysant
D000328:Adult; D004422:Dystonia Musculorum Deformans / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009110:Munchausen Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis*