According to experts, many problems along with mental retardation can be seen in patients with walking corpse syndrome. Thinking that there are people who want to kill him, denying his daily needs, thinking that his internal organs are not working are just a few of these…
“THEY BELIEVE THEY ARE DEAD”
Assoc. Dr. Taha Can Tuman made the following statements in his statement regarding Cotard syndrome, also known as walking corpse syndrome:
“Cotard syndrome was described by Jules Cotard in 1880. Cotard syndrome is often described as a delusional belief that the person is dead or does not exist. Cotard himself has offered several explanations for the condition, focusing on its distinction from classical delusions of harm and suggesting that it may be a form of inverted grandiosity. New theories suggest that there is a deterioration in the functions of the right brain hemisphere, and that this deterioration, when combined with reasoning disorders, leads to feelings of unreality in the perceptual and complex sensory system, resulting in beliefs of non-existence.”
“THEY MAY THINK THEIR INTERNAL ORGANS ARE NOT WORKING”
Stating that patients think ‘I am dead’ or ‘I have no internal organs’, the expert emphasized that they generally have a number of clinical features, including hypochondria and nihilistic delusions:
“They also include anxious and depressed mood, delusions of damnation and immortality, belief that the world does not exist, and suicidal and self-mutilating behaviors. Patients may experience severe mental retardation, thinking that there are people who want to kill them, denial of daily needs and refusal to eat or drink, and thinking that their internal organs are not working.
Cotard syndrome can occur in patients with psychiatric or neurological diseases, and psychotic depression has been suggested to be an important factor in the development of this condition. Depressive symptoms are reported in the majority of patients. Apart from this, there are case reports showing that it occurs during the course of diseases such as schizophrenia, substance use, abnormal movement and emotion syndrome. Neurologically, Cotard syndrome has been associated with a wide variety of medical conditions, especially stroke, shrinkage in the frontotemporal region of the brain, epilepsy, brain inflammation, brain tumors, and traumatic brain injury.