“Extant of the living dead”: a case report on Cotard's syndrome and its treatment aspects from a tertiary care hospital in India

Abstract

Cotard's syndrome has always borne a historical construct, being linked to pure psychosis, affective disorders as well as organic disorders like Parkinson's, temporal lobe epilepsy, migraine, and cerebral infarction. Emphasis has remained on the psychopathology, involving beliefs of negation, damnation, guilt, and denouncing of body organs. Treatment aspects has been focused on less frequently; moreover, sparsely from India. We present a case of bipolar affective disorder, current episode severe depression with psychotic symptoms (Cotard's syndrome) with special focus on treatment.