Diagnosis - Hysteria

This afternoon a 15-year-old, female, patient came to our clinic with a problem that can be somewhat common here. It's actually psychologically induced, but we always have to take care to make sure there aren't actual medical roots.

It's one of the conditions I had to learn about after moving to Kenya. They simply label it as "hysteria". It typically happens in women from Jr. High age through later adulthood. The best way I can describe it is that the lady just feels a need to check out for a little while. The patient typically faints or collapses. She then goes into a catatonic state where she cannot be aroused from anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.

The first time I saw it, I was baffled. The patient is really, genuinely, out. She doesn't respond to any stimulus, even the ones that we used to use in the ER to tell if someone was faking. But the vital signs remain stable and you can't find anything physically causing the problem. I most often see women go into this state when they are attending burials of loved ones.

The client today has quite a traumatic past. She is a child who has been living with HIV. Her parents are both dead and she was displaced during the post-election violence in 2008. She has been living in a displacement camp for the last 3 years and has not been able to attend school during that time. She sat and told us about how she was going to try to learn how to braid hair so she could get a job in a salon to save money to get back in school. Through a special program assisting children living with HIV/AIDS she was able to get a scholarship to attend our school Brook of Faith, through Empowering Lives International (ELI). This is her first week. She is in the fifth grade and trying to catch up.

My friend and colleague, Juli, and I had a lovely visit with her as she told us about her journey to Brook of Faith. In short, she is precious! I think she was overjoyed to get to spend some time with the white ladies in the village.

After she left Juli and I agreed that it was a simple case of hysteria while adjusting to a new environment. We both agreed that if we had been raised in the environment our patient had, we just might feel the need to check out every now and then too!