Huang SS. Challenges in the management of visual and tactile hallucinations in elderly people. World J Psychiatry 2025; 15(1): 101946 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i1.101946]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Si-Sheng Huang, MD, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Changhua Christian Hospital, No. 135 Nanhsiao Street, Changhua 500, Taiwan. 97278@cch.org.tw
Research Domain of This Article
Geriatrics & Gerontology
Article-Type of This Article
Letter to the Editor
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatry. Jan 19, 2025; 15(1): 101946 Published online Jan 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i1.101946
Challenges in the management of visual and tactile hallucinations in elderly people
Si-Sheng Huang
Si-Sheng Huang, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Changhua Christian Hospital, Changhua 500, Taiwan
Si-Sheng Huang, Department of Post-Baccalaureate Medicine, College of Medicine, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung 402, Taiwan
Author contributions: Huang SS designed the study and searched the literature. Huang SS drafted the article and approved the final version of the article to be published.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author reports no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Si-Sheng Huang, MD, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Changhua Christian Hospital, No. 135 Nanhsiao Street, Changhua 500, Taiwan. 97278@cch.org.tw
Received: October 2, 2024 Revised: November 3, 2024 Accepted: December 6, 2024 Published online: January 19, 2025 Processing time: 76 Days and 19.7 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: When elderly patients present with visual and tactile hallucinations, it is imperative to first exclude organic etiologies and substance use before considering primary psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. For patients with evident cognitive decline, additional assessment is warranted to evaluate potential impairments in instrumental activities of daily living and executive functions. Psychotic symptoms that emerge in late life are predominantly observed in individuals with dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. The occurrence of visual hallucinations and delusional infestations with associated scratching behaviors in elderly individuals may be linked to increased extracellular striatal dopamine levels in synapses, which is a consequence of striatal dopamine transporter dysfunction.
