Some medical and mental health experts recommend that healthcare professionals should adopt a gentle non-confrontational approach to treating people with Munchausen syndrome, suggesting to the person that they have complex health needs and may benefit from a referral to a psychiatrist.
People with Munchausen's syndrome know they're making their symptoms up and can be highly manipulative, but their behaviour brings them no obvious benefit. Instead, they often undergo painful and sometimes life-threatening surgery, even though they know it is unnecessary.
What causes it? Doctors aren't sure what causes Munchausen syndrome by proxy, but it may be linked to problems during the abuser's childhood. The attention that caregivers get from having a sick child may encourage their behaviour.
Approach Considerations. Treatment of factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA) most centrally involves protecting and treating the victim (most commonly, a child). Attention should also be paid to the perpetrator (typically a parent, most frequently the biologic mother) and the family.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder can be likened to Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy but with the difference that people with MSBP cause physical illness in others and people with NPD cause 'mental illness' in others. The similarity is in the intentional harming of a vulnerable other to meet their own needs.
When you see that someone in your life is faking illness for attention, don't be so quick to dismiss their pleas for help. If they have factitious disorder, they need urgent mental health treatment. Don't make the mistake of dismissing their pain and isolating them further in their distress.
Though the presentation of Munchausen disorder can vary widely, some of the most common presentations include chest pain, abdominal pain, vomiting and/or diarrhea, anemia, hypoglycemia, infections, seizures, weakness, headaches, vision loss, skin wounds, and arthralgias.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a mental illness and a form of child abuse. The caretaker of a child, most often a mother, either makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like the child is sick.
Signs and symptoms of Munchausen syndrome
Clever and convincing medical or psychological problems. Extensive knowledge of medical terms and diseases. Vague or inconsistent symptoms. Conditions that get worse for no apparent reason.
Abstract. Munchausen syndrome is a factitious disorder. Patients sometimes inflict injury on themselves in order to assume a sick role. The authors report a patient with Munchausen syndrome suffered from brain abscess, reopened wound and intraventricular hemorrhage.
Factitious disorder imposed on another (previously called Munchausen syndrome by proxy) is when someone falsely claims that another person has physical or psychological signs or symptoms of illness, or causes injury or disease in another person with the intention of deceiving others.
Clues to Munchausen syndrome
claiming to have a history of complex and serious medical conditions with no or little supporting evidence – people often claim they've spent a long time out of the country. having symptoms that do not match test results. having symptoms that get worse for no apparent reason.
Signs of Munchausen by proxy include:
Symptoms that worsen at home but improve while the child is under medical care. Drugs or chemicals in the child's blood or urine. Siblings who died under strange circumstances. A caregiver who is overattentive to the child and overly willing to comply with health care workers.
Test results that are inconsistent or atypical of the claimed illness may be an indication of Munchausen syndrome. Imaging studies (such as X-rays or scans) may be helpful in diagnosing Munchausen syndrome. Many claimed medical problems, such as tumors, can be easily viewed with imaging tests.
What is the prognosis (outlook) for people with Munchausen syndrome? You might suffer only a single episode of symptoms. In most cases, however, the disorder is a recurring condition that can be very difficult to treat. You might deny faking the symptoms and will not seek or follow treatment.
Munchausen syndrome is a factitious disorder, a mental disorder in which a person repeatedly and deliberately acts as if they have a physical or mental illness when they are not really sick. Munchausen syndrome is considered a mental illness because it is associated with severe emotional difficulties.
Factitious disorders are differentiated from malingering by the goal that motivates the individual's behavior. The only apparent goal in factitious illness is to gain the sick role; the goal in malingering is to gain rewards, such as compensation, or to avoid the unwanted, such as military service or jail.
People with factitious disorder are often looking for emotional support and attention from others. They believe they can achieve this through faking an illness or injury.
People with certain personality disorders, particularly Borderline Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder, may be especially susceptible to factitious disorder.
Munchausen syndrome frequently involves movement disorders2 difficult to distinguish from organic disease. Here, we describe the novel constellation of a factitious disorder presenting as a supposedly genetically confirmed hereditary disease manifesting with abnormal move- ments.
Most people with Munchausen by proxy are mothers with small children, often work in health care settings, and know a lot about medical care, according to Psychiatry. However, Munchausen by proxy can also be found in fathers or other caregivers. It can even be seen in adult children who care for elderly parents.
Published reports on Munchausen syndrome by proxy child abuse (factitious illness abuse) emphasise that the perpetrator is nearly always the child's mother. 1-4 It is very rare for the father to be actively involved in the abuse.