[Clinical implications of Capgras syndrome. Case report and literature review of "doubles" delusion in the elderly].

A case of an 84-year-old woman with Capgras' syndrome is presented, and questions on diagnostic consequences and treatment are answered after reviewing the literature. There appears to no syndrome, but a symptom, that is associated with many psychiatric diagnoses, for instance psychosis, acute confusional state, affective psychosis and dementia with delusions. The mainly casuistic literature furthermore reveals that treating the 'syndrome of Capgras' consists of a symptomatic treatment of the underlying psychiatric disturbance. These case descriptions mention a variety of somatic illnesses that occur amongst elderly with the symptom of Capgras. Therefore many authors advocate exhaustive diagnostic procedures to find these illnesses. However, from our review it is clear that almost all these diagnoses have already been made before the symptom of Capgras appears. Moreover, these diagnoses vary so much that in the individual case a specific diagnostic procedure is impossible. We therefore conclude that diagnostic procedures and treatment of elderly persons with the symptom of Capgras do not differ from that of other elderly persons with psychiatric symptoms.