Geriatric Psychiatry Unit, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India.
Department of Neuroradiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India.
Neurocase. 2022 Apr;28(2):258-262. doi: 10.1080/13554794.2022.2072227. Epub 2022 May 8.
Dementia is a neurodegenerative condition with progressive decline in cognitive faculties and associated with different clinical phenomena. Mirror phenomenon in terms of both mirror agnosia and mirror image agnosia wherein there is difficulty in processing and perception of reflected images is not uncommonly seen, and understanding the same can contribute to early diagnosis and prognostication. We report two elderly women with Alzheimer's dementia and frontotemporal dementia, respectively, presenting with features of abnormalities in mirror image processing. The former had features of both mirror agnosia and mirror image agnosia and the latter had predominantly features of mirror image agnosia with preoccupation with her mirror image. Understanding neuroanatomical networks underlying these phenomena can help early identification and subtyping dementia. Clinically differentiating these phenomena from psychotic symptoms of dementia can help in initiating appropriate non-pharmacological measures rather than resorting to use of psychotropics, the use of which may be counterproductive.
痴呆是一种神经退行性疾病，认知功能逐渐下降，并伴有不同的临床现象。镜像现象在镜像失认症和镜像像失认症中都很常见，患者在处理和感知反射图像方面存在困难，了解这些现象有助于早期诊断和预后判断。我们报告了两名分别患有阿尔茨海默病和额颞叶痴呆的老年女性，她们都表现出镜像图像处理异常的特征。前者既有镜像失认症又有镜像像失认症，后者则主要表现为镜像像失认症，对自己的镜像着迷。了解这些现象的神经解剖学网络有助于早期识别和对痴呆进行亚型分类。临床上将这些现象与痴呆的精神病症状区分开来，可以帮助采取适当的非药物措施，而不是诉诸精神药物，因为使用这些药物可能适得其反。
