Capgras Syndrome: Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis And Treatment

What is Capgras syndrome? It is a disorder in which the patient presents delusional ideation based on the belief that one of her loved ones has been replaced by a double imposter. The main symptoms of Capgras syndrome are the following:

• False identification. Belief that a person, who is usually a partner or a close family member, is not them, but is an imposter. They believe that an imposter is pretending to be their family member with a perfect disguise.
• Depersonalization: alteration of the perception of personal identity. People who show depersonalization usually feel separated from their mind and body.
• Sensations of unreality and strangeness.
• Alteration of emotional response: the patient rejects and avoids the impostor even though his or her feelings of guilt make it difficult.
• Presence of a paranoid component.

Possible causes of Capgras syndrome are:

• This syndrome is associated with a psychotic disorder For example, schizophrenia can be accompanied by different symptoms, including Capgras syndrome, depersonalization, other delusions, among others. Other associated disorders are schizoaffective disorder and psychotic depression.
• Trauma cranioencephalic.
• Another cause of Capgras syndrome is poisoning due to consumption of drugs.
• It may appear as a consequence of dementias (such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s).
• Capgras syndrome can appear as a result of suffering from brain damage or disease (epilepsy, tumor…).
• It may be due to affective disorders.
• Capgras syndrome can occur when you suffer from any organic type disease.

In order to make a correct diagnosis of Capgras syndrome, all other pathologies with which the syndrome itself is related must be investigated (we can find them in the previous section: causes of Capgras syndrome). Thus, specialists often perform different psychological tests or exams that allows them to find the appropriate diagnosis. Below, we present some of the different tests that professionals perform to diagnose Capgras syndrome and to discover if it is associated with another pathology or not:

• Initial interview and clinical history. By clinical history we understand the psychological history of the patient and his or her family.
• neurological tests. For example, the so-called mini-mental test, which is used to measure the patient’s cognitive deterioration, usually used to detect dementia.
• Benton facial recognition test: test to evaluate the memory of faces.
• HTP projective personality test. In the house, tree and person test, the patient draws a house, a tree and a person (in English House, Tree, Person, that’s why the acronym of the test is HTP). It consists of drawing, since through creativity and drawing many of the person’s personality traits can be observed.
• Test to evaluate IQ.
• Montreal Cognitive Assessment: It is an instrument that evaluates attention, concentration, executive functions, memory, language, visuoconstructive abilities, calculation and orientation.
• Brain MRI.
• Electroencephalogram.

These are some examples of the instruments that professionals use to diagnose Capgras syndrome, although if you have doubts about whether you yourself or someone close to you suffers from this syndrome, we recommend that you contact a specialist as soon as possible. you can.

For the treatment of Capgras syndrome, it must be taken into account that the duration of the syndrome is variable; it can be either a transient or passing syndrome or a syndrome that becomes chronic. It is difficult to specify a treatment for this syndrome since, normally, the most appropriate treatment is the one that focuses on the pathology associated with it such as schizophrenia.

Capgras syndrome is usually treated through a psychological perspective and from a psychiatric or medical perspective, since it often requires drugs that psychologists cannot prescribe. So, the antipsychotics (in the case of psychotic mental disorders) and anticonvulsants (in the case of pathologies where the brain is affected) form the main basis of the treatment of Capgras syndrome, at the same time as receiving psychological intervention. Furthermore, depending on the degree of severity of the patient, admission to the hospital may be required. Normally, admission occurs when the patient poses a danger to others or to himself, for example, if the patient is certain that he himself is an imposter, he may run the risk of engaging in self-harming behavior to end his life. of the imposter, but he would really be attacking himself.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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