Parents kill daughters in Andhra city: Accused couple have could suffered from ‘shared delusion disorder’

A uncommon psychotic dysfunction known as ‘shared delusion disorder’ could lie on the root of the homicide of two girls by their dad and mom in Andhra Pradesh’s Madanapalli city on January 24, investigations within the case and early evaluations of the psychological well being standing of the arrested dad and mom appear to recommend.
Alekhya V (25) and Sai Divya (22) have been discovered battered to loss of life at their residence in Madanapalli, with their dad and mom V Purushotham Naidu and V Padmaja — a university professor and the principal of a college, respectively — in a trance-like state, claiming that their daughters would “return”.
After the dad and mom have been detained, they have been discovered to be behaving erratically. Padmaja didn’t co-operate with the authorities and claimed she was a god. Her husband too was behaving in a delusional method.
A workforce of psychiatrists on the Madanapalle authorities hospital has surmised that the couple, and even perhaps the deceased, could have been affected by a ‘shared delusion disorder’.
“When we visited the sub jail to evaluate them, Padmaja did not cooperate. Pursuhottam Naidu believed that their children will come back. A conclusive report can only be given after a complete psychiatric evaluation,” Dr G Radhika, a psychiatrist who was a part of the preliminary workforce of docs who evaluated the couple at Madanapalle, acknowledged.
According to sources acquainted with the case in Madanapalle, a shared delusional dysfunction and its underlying elements could also be troublesome to evaluate for folks apart from psychological well being consultants.

Padmaja and Pursuhottam have now been despatched to a authorities hospital for psychological care in Visakhapatnam for remedy and analysis and last reviews on their psychological well being standing are nonetheless awaited.
A psychiatrist treating and evaluating the couple in Visakhapatnam stated their psychological well being situation can’t be mentioned. “This is a case that is in the courts and it is a confidential issue and we should not speak about it,” the psychiatrist stated.
Speaking on the standing of the case, a police official in Madanapalle stated, “They were sent to Visakhapatnam and we have no communication on what treatment they are receiving. We do not know if they are delusional. We are only looking at it from the prosecution side.”
According to accounts offered by a number of individuals who knew Padmaja, Pursuhottam and their daughters, the household has a historical past of psychological sickness — Padmaja is reported to have been by delusions, whereas one of many daughters obtained remedy for delusional experiences when she was round 10.
Shared delusion dysfunction or shared psychotic dysfunction, known as ‘folie a deux’ (the French for ‘madness shared by two’) in psychiatric literature, is described as “an unusual mental disorder characterised by sharing a delusion among two or more people who are in a close relationship”.
When such a phenomenon happens in a household, it’s known as ‘folie a famille’.
“Folie a famille is characterised as a shared psychotic disorder within a family, in more than two members. The involved patients have an unusually close relationship and are isolated from others,” says a 2010 analysis paper printed within the Indian Journal of Psychiatry, based mostly on a case examine of a household of 5 that have been affected by the uncommon psychological dysfunction in India.
One of the measures for such a illness is to separate the first or dominant particular person from the extra mildly affected and to supply remedy. The reasonably affected are inclined to recuperate shortly when separated from the first inducer whereas the extra severely affected individuals require lengthy remedy, based on research on the dysfunction.