A Rare Case of an Elderly Woman with Delusional Parasitosis (Ekbom’s Syndrome)

Introduction: Delusional parasitosis is a form of relatively rare psychiatric disorder in which the sufferer holds firms false believe of their skin being infested by parasite. On 1938 scientist Ekbom published a case report detailing 8 patients suffering from this delusional perception and hence this condition is also known as Ekbom’s syndrome.

Case Presentation: We present a 67 years old normotensive non diabetic female patient who was brought to the outpatient Department by her son with complain that, insects are crawling under her skin. She has been suffering from this condition for three years and it was causing tremendous psychosocial and physical adverse consequences. She has never been on treatment by any specialist before but has received treatment from traditional village healers with little improvement.

Conclusion: Ekbom’s syndrome is a rare yet important delusional disorder. This is a hard to treat condition that Doctors should be aware of.