Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction TypeHoch, August
Science
Benign Stupors: A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type
Hoch, August
Manic-depressive illness; Stupor
In the most pronounced stupor we have evidently a more or less complete
standstill in thinking processes. Practically no impressions are
registered and consequently nothing is remembered except events that
occurred in some short periods when some affective stimulus, or a brief
burst of elation, lifts the patient temporarily out of the deep stupor.
It is impossible to say whether the statement of a complete standstill
has to be qualified. In some stupors repeated environmental stimuli
sometimes make at least a vague impression, so that while spontaneous
recollection is impossible a feeling of familiarity is present when the
patient is again confronted with this environment. This might be an
exception to the dictum of complete mental vacuity, or it may be that
there are somewhat less pronounced stupor reactions. When more is
perceived, there is often a retrospective statement of having felt mixed
up, being unable to take in things, or, directly under observation, the
patient may say, “I cannot realize where I am,” “I cannot take in my
surroundings.” In harmony with this is the fact that questions often
produce a certain bewilderment. In quite pronounced states in which
some replies can still be obtained, we find that the intellectual
processes may be interfered with to the extent of a paragraphia, i.e., a
remarkably mixed-up writing in which perseveration (one form of
following the path of least resistance) plays a prominent part. This
same principle is also seen in such reactions as the repetition of the
question or the senseless repetition of a former answer. These phenomena
remind us of what we see in epileptic confusions, in epileptic
deterioration and in arteriosclerotic dementia.
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