Cotard Syndrome - Walking Corpse Syndrome – What is it? Short Documentary

Cotard’s Syndrome - Walking Corpse Syndrome – Mental Health Documentary.

People with Cotard’s syndrome believe that parts of their body or internal organs don’t work or don’t exist… or even that they are dead. No amount of persuasion will convince them otherwise and they just can’t see the contradiction in believing that they’re dead and yet still able to breathe and walk around.

It was first described in 1880 by French psychiatrist Jules Cotard who reported the case of a woman who believed that she had "no brain, nerves, chest, or entrails, and was just skin and bone". She asked to be burned alive and made various attempts to end her life and she eventually died of starvation.

Nowadays, the term Cotard delusion is used when a patient describes nihilistic delusions, but it does not appear as a diagnosis in its own right in any of the current international classification systems. It is sometimes referred to as the “walking corpse syndrome”.

Cotard's syndrome occurs in schizophrenia, severe psychotic depression and dementia and has also been reported in people with brain tumours, traumatic brain injury, subdural haemorrhage, migraines, epilepsy and as an adverse reaction to acyclovir.

It has been suggested that Per Ohlin, stage name "Dead", lead vocalist for the black metal band Mayhem, had Cotard’s syndrome. However, people with Cotard’s syndrome are not obsessed with death: they do not collect dead animals, wear corpse paint or burn down churches - they are not zombies or pretend zombies. It is not an affectation but an illness.

References:
Berrios, G. E., and Luque, R. (1995). Cotard's syndrome: analysis of 100 cases. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 91(3), 185-188.
Berrios, G. E., and Luque, R. (1995). Cotard's delusion or syndrome?: a conceptual history. Comprehensive psychiatry, 36(3), 218-223.
Berrios, G. E., and Luque, R. (1999). Cotard's' On hypochondriacal delusions in a severe form of anxious melancholia'. History of Psychiatry, 10(38), 269-274.
Cotard, J. (1880) Du delire hypocondriaque dans une forme grave de melancolie anxieuse. Ann. Méd. Psychol. 4 168-174.
Cotard, J. (1882). Du délire des négations. Arch de Neurol, 4, 150-170; 282-296.
Couto, R. A., and Moreira Goncalves, L. (2021). A medical algorithm for Cotard delusion based on more than 300 literature cases. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 25(3), 220-232.
Gardner‐Thorpe, C., and Pearn, J. (2004). The Cotard syndrome. Report of two patients: with a review of the extended spectrum of ‘délire des négations’. European Journal of Neurology, 11(8), 563-566.
Gonçalves, L. M., and Tosoni, A. (2016). Sudden onset of Cotard’s syndrome as a clinical sign of brain tumor. Archives of Clinical Psychiatry (São Paulo), 43, 35-36.
Machado, L., and Machado, L. (2016). When the patient believes that the organs are destroyed: Manifestation of Cotard’s syndrome. Case Reports in Medicine, 2016.
Mendhekar, D. N., and Gupta, N. (2005). Recurrent postictal depression with Cotard delusion. The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 72(6), 529-531.
Régis, E. (1893). Note historique et clinique sur le délire des négations. Gaz Med Paris, 2, 61-4.

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Video produced by Graeme Yorston and Tom Yorston.