Xu T, Mei X, Zhao Z, Liu YH, Zheng CY. Effectiveness of anti-psychiatric treatment on visual and haptic perceptual disorder for a patient with Alzheimer’s disease: A case report. World J Psychiatry 2024; 14(9): 1404-1410 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i9.1404]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Cheng-Ying Zheng, BSc, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, No. 1 Zhuangyu South Road, Zhenhai District, Ningbo 315201, Zhejiang Province, China. zhengchengying@126.com
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Case Report
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Sep 19, 2024; 14(9): 1404-1410 Published online Sep 19, 2024. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v14.i9.1404
Effectiveness of anti-psychiatric treatment on visual and haptic perceptual disorder for a patient with Alzheimer’s disease: A case report
Ting Xu, Xi Mei, Zheng Zhao, Yue-Hong Liu, Cheng-Ying Zheng
Ting Xu, Xi Mei, Zheng Zhao, Yue-Hong Liu, Cheng-Ying Zheng, Department of Psychiatry, Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, Ningbo 315201, Zhejiang Province, China
Co-first authors: Ting Xu and Xi Mei.
Author contributions: Xu T, Zhao Z and Liu YH participated in patient management and follow-up and collected patient information; Mei X searched the literature for the case description and wrote the first draft of manuscript; Zheng CY revised the first draft and prepared the final manuscript; All authors are actively involved in all steps of the contribution.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from the patient and his legally authorized representative for the publication of this case report in accordance with the journal’s patient consent policy.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Cheng-Ying Zheng, BSc, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University, No. 1 Zhuangyu South Road, Zhenhai District, Ningbo 315201, Zhejiang Province, China. zhengchengying@126.com
Received: April 30, 2024 Revised: August 22, 2024 Accepted: August 30, 2024 Published online: September 19, 2024 Processing time: 134 Days and 0 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Perception is frequently impaired in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Several patients exhibit visual or haptic hallucinations.
CASE SUMMARY
A 71-year-old Chinese man presented with visual and haptic hallucinations he had been experiencing for 2 weeks. The clinical manifestations were the feeling of insects crawling and biting the limbs and geison. He looked for the insects while itching and scratching, which led to skin breakage on the limbs. He was treated with topical and anti-allergic drugs in several dermatology departments without any significant improvement. After admission, the patient was administered risperidone (0.5 mg) and duloxetine (2 mg/day). One week later, the dose of risperidone was increased to 2 mg/day, and that of duloxetine was increased to 60 mg/day. After 2 weeks of treatment, the patient’s sensation of insects crawling and biting disappeared, and his mood stabilized.
CONCLUSION
This patient manifested psychiatric behavioral symptoms caused by AD brain atrophy. It was important to re-evaluate the patient’s cognitive-psychological status when the patient repeatedly went to the hospital for treatment. Follow-up attention to cognitive function and the consideration of perceptual deficits as early manifestations of AD should be considered.
Core Tip: Topical and anti-allergic drugs did not provide improvement. After admission the patient was diagnosed with psychiatric behavioral symptoms of brain atrophy due to Alzheimer’s disease. The patient was administered risperidone (0.5 mg) and duloxetine (2 mg/day). One week later, the dose of risperidone was increased to 2 mg/day, and that of duloxetine was increased to 60 mg/day. After 2 weeks of treatment the patient no longer had the sensation of insects biting a crawling and his mood stabilized.
