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Behavioural changes in an adopted teenager
  1. Aayesha Soni1,
  2. Gillian Booysen2,
  3. Jeannine M Heckmann1
  1. 1 Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Groote Schuur Hospital, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
  2. 2 Department of Psychiatry, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, Western Cape, South Africa
  1. Correspondence to Dr Aayesha Soni, Division of Neurology, Department of Medicine, Groote Schuur Hospital, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; ajsoni008{at}gmail.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/practneurol-2021-003236

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    A 22-year-old woman presented with an insidious progressive cognitive decline and a recent, although transient, period of illicit drug use. She had been normal until age 16 years but then had developed learning difficulties, a stiffening of posture and gait and occasional involuntary jerks. She had been adopted in early infancy, with no available birth history or family history. She had initially been referred to the psychiatric clinic and been treated for depressed mood with features of psychosis and suspected catatonia. Her mood had settled but the rigidity, posturing and gait abnormalities had persisted, prompting neurological referral.

    On examination, she had disturbed behaviour with poor eye contact and perseveration of speech. She had a stiff truncal posture, spastic gait, intermittent bilateral dystonic hand posturing, mild dysarthria, global rigidity and hyperreflexia.

    MR scan of the brain showed bilateral T2 FLAIR (T2-weighted fluid-attenuated inversion recovery) hyperintensities in the …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors JMH was responsible for the concept design of the case. All authors wrote the case.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally reviewed by Ed Wild, London, UK.

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