Minor Hallucinations Research Articles

Minor hallucinations occur in drug-naive Parkinson's disease patients, even from the premotor phase.

The description of minor hallucinatory phenomena (presence, passage hallucinations) has widened the spectrum of psychosis in Parkinson's disease (PD). Minor hallucinatory phenomena seem to antedate the development of more severe hallucinations. Early detection of minor hallucinations may be useful for screening patients with more severe endophenotypes. Motivated by the observation of "de novo," drug-naive PD patients reporting minor hallucinations, we aimed to prospectively identify "de novo" untreated PD patients experiencing hallucinatory phenomena, and to compare their clinico-demographic characteristics with those of untreated PD patients without hallucinations and healthy controls. Screening and description of psychosis was assessed by the Movement Disorders Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale-Part I and a structured interview covering all types of psychotic phenomena reported in PD. Clinical, neuropsychological, and demographic data of PD patients with and without psychotic phenomena were compared with those of age- and education-matched healthy controls. Fifty drug-naive, "de novo" PD patients and 100 controls were prospectively included. Minor hallucinations were experienced in 42% (21 of 50) PD patients and 5% controls (P < 0.0001). Coexistence of passage and presence hallucinations was the most common finding. Unexpectedly, 33.3% of patients with minor hallucinations manifested these as a pre-motor symptom, starting 7 months to 8 years before first parkinsonian motor symptoms. The presence of minor hallucinations was significantly associated with presence of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder. In this first study to prospectively analyze the frequency of minor hallucinatory phenomena in incident, untreated PD patients, hallucinations appeared as a frequent early non-motor symptom that may even predate the onset of parkinsonism.

A clinical profile of patients with Parkinson's disease and psychosis.

Aims:The aim of the study was to study the clinical profile of the patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and psychosis.Settings and Design:This was a prospective, cross sectional, hospital-based study done at the Department of Neurology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India from September 2009 to January 2011. All patients with PD, diagnosed by United Kingdom PD Society Brain Bank criteria, having with features of psychosis as diagnosed by the neuropsychiatric inventory (NPI) were included. Patients without a caregiver who could validate the patient's symptoms were excluded.Results:A total of 40 patients (5 women, 35 men) with PD with psychosis (mean age: 54.2 ± 11.5 years, mean duration of illness: 6.5 ± 4.5 years, and mean duration of psychosis: 4.3 ± 4.3 years) were included in the study. The Global NPI score was 19.1 ± 11.5. Majority of the patients had pure hallucinations (85%), while the rest had either pure delusions (7.5%) or a combination of delusions and hallucinations (7.5%). In those with hallucinations, visual hallucinations were the commonest (60%) (pure only in 22.5%), followed by auditory (45%), minor hallucinations (45%), and tactile (20%). Only one person reported having olfactory hallucinations (2.5%). Loss of insight was most often observed during the visual hallucinations (52%), followed by tactile (44.4%), auditory (38.9 %), and minor hallucinations (33.3%).Conclusions:In patients with PD and psychosis, pure hallucinations are common and visual hallucinations are the commonest among the hallucinations. A large proportion of patients have minor hallucinations, which need to be recognized early for effective and early management. The limitations of the study were small sample size, use of a single scale to assess psychosis and subjective assessment of insight.

Neural correlates of minor hallucinations in non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease

BackgroundHallucinations are a frequent and severe complication in Parkinson's disease (PD). Minor hallucinations are generally not disturbing, but likely progress to well-structured hallucinations with loss of insight and a great impact on quality of life. Knowledge on the neural bases of minor hallucinations may help to describe those systems associated with the early development of psychotic phenomena in PD.In this study, we aimed to identify the pattern of structural brain alterations associated with minor hallucinations in PD by using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). MethodsWe prospectively collected a sample of 46 non-demented PD patients, with (N = 17) and without (n = 29) minor hallucinations (passage and/or presence hallucinations), and 15 healthy controls. Groups were matched for age, education and global cognitive function. Presence and type of minor psychotic phenomena was assessed by the new MDS-UPDRS. Three dimensional T1-weighted MRI images were acquired with a 1.5 T magnet, and analyzed using optimized VBM. ResultsCompared to controls, PD with minor hallucinations (PD-mH) showed reduced gray matter volume bilaterally in different areas of the dorsal visual stream, and in functionally related midbrain and cerebellar structures. Additionally, bilateral gray matter volume increases were observed in the PD-mH group in limbic and paralimbic regions. ConclusionsOur data support a major role of the dorsal visual stream in the genesis of minor hallucinations in PD, reinforcing the importance of posterior cortical regions for the development of cognitive and psychiatric complications in PD.

Pitolisant, an Inverse Agonist of the Histamine H3 Receptor

Narcolepsy is a rare disabling sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone). Drugs such as pitolisant, which block histamine H3 autoreceptors, constitute a newly identified class of stimulants because they increase brain histamine and enhance wakefulness in animal and human adult narcolepsy. We report our experience with the off-label use of pitolisant in 4 teenagers with narcolepsy/cataplexy with severe daytime sleepiness, refractory to available treatments (modafinil, methylphenidate, mazindol, sodium oxybate, and D-amphetamine). All teenagers developed their disease during childhood (11.3 ± 2.4 years; 50% boys) and were 17.3 ± 0.8 years old at the time of pitolisant therapy. Pitolisant treatment was increased from 10 to 30 mg (n = 1) and 40 mg (n = 3). The adapted Epworth Sleepiness Score decreased from 14.3 ± 1.1 to 9.5 ± 2.9 (P = 0.03) with pitolisant alone to 7 ± 3.4 when combined with mazindol (n = 1), methylphenidate (n = 1), or sodium oxybate plus modafinil (n = 1). Mean sleep onset latency increased from 31 ± 14 minutes to 36 ± 8 minutes (P = 0.21) on the maintenance of wakefulness test. The severity and frequency of cataplexy were slightly improved. Adverse effects were minor (insomnia, headache, hot flushes, leg pain, and hallucinations) and transitory, except for insomnia, which persisted in 2 teenagers. The benefit was maintained after a mean of 13 months. Pitolisant could constitute an acceptable alternative for the treatment of refractory sleepiness in teenagers with narcolepsy.

Neuropsychological correlates of mild to severe hallucinations in Parkinson's disease

The development of visual hallucinations (VH) is a frequent complication of Parkinson's disease (PD). Presence of hallucinations is one of the main risk factors associated with dementia, and severity progression of VH mainly contributes to impaired quality of life in PD. The neuropsychological features associated with severity progression of VH are unknown and might help to detect patients at risk of a more severe outcome. We aimed to explore the neuropsychological deficits associated with the different types of VH observed in PD, from minor hallucinations to well-formed VH with loss of insight. Prospective study of 57 PD patients with (n = 29) and without VH (n = 28) matched for age, education, antiparkinsonian medications, and disease duration. Description of VH was assessed by the Hallucinations and Psychosis item of the MDS-UPDRS. Cognition was assessed with the Parkinson's Disease-Cognitive Rating Scale (PD-CRS) and the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale (MDRS). Patients with minor VH did not differ from patients without VH in any cognitive domain. PD patients with major VH and insight retained performed worse on the action verbal fluency task (P < 0.04), and patients with VH and loss of insight showed a greater impairment on the PD-CRS posterior cortical score (P = 0.021) and the clock copying item (P = 0.01). A double dissociation was found in the neuropsychological profile of patients with VH with and without loss of insight. While the presence of major VH with insight retained appeared related to a predominant frontal-striatal impairment, loss of insight was characterized by further impairment of cognitive functions related to posterior cortical areas. A comprehensible continuum pattern of clinical relationships emerged among VH and cognitive functioning in PD.

Clinical Holistic Medicine: The Patient with Multiple Diseases

In clinical practice, patients can present with many different diseases, often both somatic and mental. Holistic medicine will try to see the diseases as a whole, as symptoms of a more fundamental imbalance in the state of being. The holistic physician must help the patient to recover existence and a good relationship with self. According to the life mission theory, theory of character, and holistic process theory of healing, recovering the purpose of life (the life mission) is essential for the patient to regain life, love, and trust in order to find happiness and realize the true purpose of life. We illustrate the power of the holistic medical approach with a case study of an invalidated female artist, aged 42 years, who suffered from multiple severe health problems, many of which had been chronic for years. She had a combination of neurological disturbances (tinnitus, migraine, minor hallucinations), immunological disturbances (recurrent herpes simplex, phlegm in the throat, fungal infection in the crotch), hormonal disturbances (14 days of menstruation in each cycle), muscle disturbances (neck tensions), mental disturbances (tendency to cry, inferiority feeling, mild depression, desolation, anxiety), abdominal complaints, hemorrhoids, and more. The treatment was a combined strategy of improving the general quality of life, recovering her human character and purpose of life (“renewing the patients life energy”, “balancing her global information system”), and processing the local blockages, thus healing most of her many different diseases in a treatment using 30 h of intense holistic therapy over a period of 18 months.