An outbreak of hysterical paraplegia

Abstract

The diagnosis of hysterical paraplegia, following injury, has only rarely been made, and no report of such cases has been recorded in the recent textbooks by Guttmann, Bedbrook and other authors. In a review of non-traumatic paraplegia, treated at the Sheffield Unit, the diagnosis was not made during a period of 15 years, until the winter of 1977/78 when four such cases were confidently recognised in a short period of time. This surprising development encouraged me to review these cases to ascertain whether there were any common factors to explain such an unusual outbreak. The patients were all young men engaged in heavy physical work and other circumstances common to most of them were service in a uniformed organisation; with psychiatric illness, and marriage breakdown as principal features. Fortunately recovery was rapid and complete in most cases. I have no references to list as I could not find any reports of similar cases in the paraplegic and psychiatric literature. Addendum. Since this paper was read in July 1981, two further cases of hysterical paraplegia have been detected, both dissimilar in almost every feature from the four cases reported. © 1982 International Medical Society of Paraplegia.