What is Latah?

Latah is a syndrome first described in Malaya that occurs mostly in middle-aged women or elderly women. Latah has been known for many centuries and regarded more as an eccentricity than a disease.

The patients become increasingly fearful and seclusive and may repeat some of his own words (echolalia) ; later on, he will repeat the words on sentences of other people. At first they utters incomprehensible sounds, which later clearly obscene or curse  words which he never  used before (coprolalia).

Similar syndromes have been describes in Siberia, Japan, Philippines, Madagascar, and Congo under different names.

(Edited by María Moya Guirao, MD)