Premium
Cotard's syndrome in the elderly: Historical and clinical aspects
Author(s) -
Luque R.,
Berrios G. E.
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
international journal of geriatric psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.28
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1099-1166
pISSN - 0885-6230
DOI - 10.1002/gps.930091203
Subject(s) - delusion , melancholia , damnation , psychology , sadness , psychiatry , negation , psychoanalysis , pessimism , disease , medicine , philosophy , anger , cognition , epistemology , theology , pathology , linguistics
Abstract This article explores the conceptual construction of Cotard's syndrome and includes an analysis of 100 cases of which 20 were over 65. Jules Cotard took the view that délire des négations was only a subtype of depressive illness characterized by sadness, guilt, marked anxiety, suicidal behaviour, insensitivity to pain, and delusions of negation, damnation and enormity. Soon after his death, however, a debate ensued as to whether what he had described was specific to melancholia or could be found associated with other psychoses. This view predominated for more than 80 years. Currently, and despite the fact that the French term déAlire means more than ‘delusion’, some authors use ‘Cotard's delusion’ to refer to the isolated of ‘being dead’. From clinical and evolutionary perspectives, it is unclear why an isolated delusion should merit (as some have suggested) a special brain location. Analysis of the cases so far reported suggests that it is only in the elderly that Cotard's syndrome tends to acquire its clinical completeness. There is no evidence, however, that its presence is a function of disease ‘severity’.