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Catatonia is a behavioral syndrome characterized by a variety of symptoms such as mutism, stupor, rigidity, negativism, and verbigeration. It can be caused by various psychiatric and general medical conditions. While the diagnosis in the pediatric population is relatively uncommon, emerging literature supports a higher prevalence of catatonia in children. We present a 12-year-old girl with a complex medical and psychosocial history, including a functional neurological disorder and concerns for child abuse and Munchausen syndrome by proxy imposed by her mother. The patient was initially admitted for medical management of vomiting and refusal to eat. Child psychiatry was consulted for further assessment and noted multiple catatonic symptoms with a Busch-Francis catatonia rating scale (BFCRS) score of 22. A subsequent 1 mg IV lorazepam challenge test showed improvement in the patient's symptoms with a repeat BFCRS score of 10. This case supports emerging literature suggesting a higher prevalence of catatonia in children and the importance of recognizing this syndrome and its wide array of underlying causes.

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After the use of thallium as rat poison was banned, the knowledge about the severe and treacherous course of poisonings with this toxic metal has widely been lost. In the present case, the male victim sustained two insidious poisoning attacks in 2017 and 2020 by the perpetrator, his female life partner. In the first poisoning episode, he suffered from increasing heavy pain of the abdomen, stinging pain of both legs, persistent obstipation, hyperesthesia, and, after about 2 weeks, tuft-wise loss of hair as typical symptoms of the thallium poisoning. Within 7 weeks, he was successively examined in six hospitals with a wide variety of diagnostic methods, but a conclusive explanation of the complaints was not found. The possibility of a metal intoxication was then suggested by the perpetrator who privately arranged the analysis of a blood sample with the result of 175 µg/l thallium. Although a criminal poisoning was assumed, the perpetrator was not identified. After the victim left the perpetrator, she subtly executed a second poisoning attack with thallium sulfate (blood level 1230 µg/l after 1 day, urine level 4760 µg/l after 10 days, and hair concentrations 3.26-0.49 from proximal to distal in 9 segments). The perpetrator was sentenced to 10.5 years imprisonment for grievous bodily harm and attempted murder. Because of the behavior of the perpetrator, a Munchausen by proxy syndrome was discussed as a motivation of the first poisoning but was excluded by the psychiatric expert because of a missing antisocial personality disorder.

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Munchausen by proxy refers to an individual who abusively and compulsively falsifies physical, psychiatric or developmental disorders in a child or adult victim in order to satisfy a psychological need. Factitious disorder imposed on another refers to the psychopathology in the abuser. Psychologists in medical settings may: (1) identify patients they come to suspect as being victims or perpetrators of MBP, (2) conduct or assist in clinical or forensic evaluations; (3) offer recommendations for clinical case management, and/or (4) provide treatment or referrals. The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance to psychologists and other mental health professionals in medical settings who may encounter individuals with this potentially lethal form of psychopathology.

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BACKGROUND: In fabricated or induced illness (FII), a child is harmed due to caregiver(s) behaviour and actions, carried out to convince mainly doctors that the child's physical and/or psychological health is more impaired than in reality. Harm is caused directly by the caregivers(s) and also often inadvertently by doctors' responses. OBJECTIVES: To describe: dynamics underlying FII; wider definition of FII; alerting signs for early recognition of possible FII; respective responsibilities of health, social care, education. METHODS: Literature review, clinical experience, expert opinion. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Caregivers are motivated by gain from having their child treated as ill, and/or by erroneous beliefs about their child's health, either way needing medical confirmation about their contentions. Their behaviour is therefore directed primarily towards doctors. Most cases of FII present unexplained discrepancies between caregiver reports/actions and independent observations of the child. More rarely, the child has actual signs of illness, induced by the caregiver, occasionally fatal. Children are harmed in all aspects of life: health, daily functioning including education, and psychologically. Harm emanates directly from the caregiver(s) but also unintentionally from medical responses. Illness induction and clear deception by the caregiver require immediate child protection. Otherwise, the initial focus is on assessing the child's current health and functioning rather than caregiver's mental health. If, beyond verified illness, there is no medical explanation for the child's reported ill-health, the family require help to function better. This requires co-ordinated, multidisciplinary rehabilitation and long-term monitoring. If caregivers refuse rehabilitation, child protection is required. Several unanswered questions remain.

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The purpose of this article is to propose management and treatment protocols for family members impacted by MBP abuse. A brief review of psychopathology, co-morbidities, MBP risk level, treatment outcomes, and rationale for treatment is presented, followed by detailed guidance regarding psychological treatment and management. We propose five components of psychotherapy for abusers, best remembered by using the acronym of ACCEPTS: ACknowledgement, Coping, Empathy, Parenting, Taking charge, and Support. Guidance for the treatment of spouses/partners of the abuser, other involved family members/friends, and child victims are also provided.

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Resumen La presente es una revisión bibliográfica de casos publicados de niños con manifestaciones orales de maltrato físico, específicamente del Síndrome de Munchausen por poder. Tiene como objetivo resumir y presentar las características de las lesiones de víctimas del Síndrome, utilizando las principales bases de datos de publicaciones científicas. Se encontraron 9 casos, en todos ellos la victimaria fue la madre. Las lesiones se localizaron en la mucosa orofaríngea, las encías, la lengua, el paladar y los labios; fueron causadas por sustancias tóxicas administradas por vía oral o por compresión manual de la boca. En dos casos la víctima falleció. Se registró la muerte previa de 6 hermanos de las víctimas. Finalmente, se propone un esquema de evaluación odontológica forense para establecer o descartar que las lesiones de la cavidad oral sean parte del Síndrome.

Abstract This is a literature review of published cases of children with oral manifestations of physical abuse, specifically of Munchausen Syndrome by proxy. It is intended to summarize and present the characteristics of injuries of victims of the Syndrome, using the main databases of scientific publications. 9 cases were found, all of them the perpetrator was the mother. The lesions were found in the oropharyngeal mucosa, gums, tongue, palate and lips; they were caused by toxic substances administered orally or by manual compression of the mouth. In two cases the victim died. The previous death of 6 brothers of the victims was recorded. Finally, a forensic dental evaluation scheme intends to establish or rule out that lesions of the oral cavity are part of the syndrome.

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BACKGROUND: Medical child abuse is a challenging diagnosis to make, particularly in older children with unusual presenting symptoms. CASE: A 7-year-old child with complex medical history presented with anogenital bleeding of unknown origin. Extensive laboratory testing, imaging studies, and diagnostic procedures were negative for any etiology. Forensic testing confirmed the blood in her underwear was a genetic match to the patient. Trial separation from the mother was diagnostic and therapeutic in this case. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION: Older children who are victims of medical child abuse might present in a variety of ways, and might even collaborate with the perpetrator in falsifying symptoms. It is important to keep medical child abuse on the differential when the patient's symptoms and work-up do not match.

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In Munchausen by proxy (MBP) maltreatment, increasingly termed "medical child abuse" (MCA), a caregiver fabricates or induces illness in another. The perpetrator's goal for the behavior is to meet personal emotional needs by forcing unnecessary or misguided medical or psychological treatment. Generally, a mother is the perpetrator and her child is the victim. There is a serious lack of research into most aspects of MCA, and this study is the first to utilize the anonymity of an Internet forum to investigate victims' first-hand experiences of, and the public's opinions about, suspected and confirmed MCA. Three-hundred and fifty-six posts by 348 members were explored and coded using formal qualitative content analysis. By accessing an open-thought online forum, this paper acquired information regarding social perceptions about the nonperpetrating partners who are unaware of the maltreatment; the disturbing and counterintuitive phenomenon of MCA itself; and the resistance often faced by those who attempt to report it.

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Morgellons disease is an infrequent syndromic condition, that typically affects middle-aged white women, characterized by crawling sensations on and under the skin, associated with itchy rashes, stinging sores, fiber-like filaments emerging from the sores, severe fatigue, concentrating difficulty, and memory loss. The scientific community is prone to believe that Morgellons is the manifestation of various psychiatric syndromes (Munchausen, Munchausen by proxy, Ekbom, Wittmaack-Ekbom). Up until now, no investigative science-based evidence about its psychogenesis has ever been provided. In order to close this gap, we have analyzed the filaments extracted from the skin lesions of a 49-year-old Caucasian female patient, by using a Field Emission Gun-Environmental Electron Scanning Microscope equipped with an X-ray microprobe, for the chemico-elemental characterization of the filaments, comparing them with those collected during a detailed indoor investigation, with careful air monitoring, in her apartment. Our results prove the self-introduction under the epidermis of environmental filaments. For the first time in the literature, we have scientifically demonstrated the self-induced nature of Morgellons disease, thereby wiping out fanciful theories about its etiopathogenesis.

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Neonaticide is an infant murder occurring on the day of birth. The case reports found in the literature are often focused on the mother as the agent in the context of pregnancy denial, dissociative symptoms, or psychosis. However, this report describes a rare case of attempted serial neonaticides, in which the acts were committed by a nurse at the nursery of a referral hospital in Brazil. The authors describe a forensic psychiatric evaluation for criminal responsibility and correlate the information from this particular case with relevant forensic themes, namely neonaticide, Munchausen by proxy syndrome, and serial healthcare killers.

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One of the most discussed questions in clinical literature concerns the impact of child abuse by mentally ill parents (cf. Mattejat, 1998). It's obvious that most children cannot understand such a parental behaviour and that this lack of understanding along with the lack of knowledge about their parents' emotional disorder results in childrens' fear, disorientation and uncertainty. The consequences are massive interferences in the relationship between parents and children, who could develop an anxious-resistant insecure or even a disorganized/disoriented attachment. But how does a child react, if the behaviour of its parents is ambivalent itself and alternates from abuse to care? Such a parental behaviour is described as the "Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome". This article regards the effects of a "Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome" on the childrens' attachment development. After discussing the basic assumptions about the "Munchhauen by Proxy Syndrome" and the attachment theory we draw conclusions about the syndrome's effect on childrens' attachment behaviour.

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Three recently diagnosed cases of caregiver-fabricated illness in a child at Seattle Children's Hospital shed light on a new manifestation of their caretakers' attention seeking. The patients' mothers were actively blogging about their children's reputed illnesses. Although it is not uncommon for parents of chronically ill children to blog about their child's medical course, specific themes in these blogs of parents suspected of medically abusing their children were noted. In particular, gross distortions of the information parents had received from medical providers were presented online, describing an escalation of the severity of their children's illnesses. The mothers reported contacting palliative care teams and Wish organizations, independently from their medical providers' recommendations. They sought on-line donations for their children's health needs. We believe these blogs provide additional direct evidence of the suspected caregivers' fabrications. Although we have not performed formal content analysis, blogs might also provide insight into the caretakers' motivations. Protective Services and/or police investigators could consider querying the internet for blogs related to children at risk for caregiver-fabricated illness in a child. These blogs, if viewed in parallel with the children's medical records, could assist medical diagnosis and legal documentation of medical fabrication and assist in protective planning for the affected children.

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