[Mental Illness 2012; 4:e5] [page 21] Psychological aspectsin children affected byDuchenne de Boulognemuscular dystrophy

Impairment of intelligence in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) patients was described by Duchenne de Boulogne himself in 1868. Further studies report intelligence disor-ders with mayor impairment of memory. The aim of the present study was to assess the presence of affective and personality disorders in a group of children affected by DMD. Twenty six male DMD patients, mean age eleven and four months years old, were assessed for their affective and personality disorder. Only eight subjects had a total IQ below average with major difficulties in verbal and visual-spatial memory, comprehension, arithmetic and vocabulary. All the subjects presented some disorders: tendency to marginalization and isolation, self-depreciation, sense of insecuri-ty, hypochondriac thoughts and marked state of anxiety. These disorders are often a dynam-ic prolongation of a psychological process which starts when the diagnosis is made and continues, in a slow and latent fashion, throughout the evolution of the disease