Munchausen syndrome is a rare mental disorder in which the affected person would pretend to have multiple physical and psychological problems. At present, this syndrome is known as factitious disorder. People with some form of psychotic illness and people in the age group of 20-40 years and those having little knowledge in medical field are likely to develop this disorder. This disorder is known to occur from ancient times and was named after Baron Friedrich von Munchausen, a military man who lived in 18th century.
There is no known cause for this syndrome and people who are psychologically affected in one way or the other are likely to develop this disorder. It is difficult to treat Munchausen syndrome and through combined approach can be managed to some extent. The disorder can be prevented with regular monitoring of the people who are at high risk of developing this syndrome and treating them early. This syndrome is characterized with severe form of emotional problems.
The idea of the person with Munchausen syndrome is to get the attention of others by appearing sick or imposing self injury. The symptoms may range from mild to severe and the affected person may go to the extent of tampering the diagnosis to convince the medical experts.
Symptoms :
An individual with Munchausen syndrome would harm his/her body in several ways to grab the attention of others. They might go to the extent of faking symptoms and hurt themselves to bleeding to convince others. They would try to tamper the tests to get the desired results. It becomes difficult for doctors to diagnose that these symptoms are due to mental disorder and not any other physical illness.
Munchausen syndrome by proxy shortly called as MSBP is a disorder in which someone would harm another individual for getting medical attention. For instance parent can harm his/her own child. Some of the symptoms of Munchausen syndrome are frequent visits to the hospital, showing or telling convincing health problems, vague symptoms, and health problems that gets worse or not respond to standard therapies and treatment. The person would show eagerness to undergo any sort of testing procedures just for the sake of proving himself/herself. The individual would gather in-depth information about his disease or illness to come up with the right answer anytime.