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Child With Fever And Woke Up Hallucinating. Cause For Hallucination?
My 8 year-old has been battling a fever for 3 days and woke up hallucinating. This happened to me as a kid. The second time he woke up hallucinating, it appeared that the fever had broken. Should it concern me that the hallucinations seemed to continue when he wasn t hot to the touch? I questioned him on his spelling and a recent school project to check his cognitive functions while it was happening and he was able to answer my questions. Any advice?
Mon, 4 Mar 2013
Hello mwsherry
Welcome to Health Care Magic
Hallucinations are basically perception of something without stimulus. There are a lot of causes of hallucination and in children in conditions of high fever, hallucinations are reported. Proper control of fever is needed to control hallucinations. There is no need to worry. There is usually no change in cognitive functions in fever but high grade fever may cause poor attention and concentration.
Hope I cleared your doubt.
Take Care
Welcome to Health Care Magic
Hallucinations are basically perception of something without stimulus. There are a lot of causes of hallucination and in children in conditions of high fever, hallucinations are reported. Proper control of fever is needed to control hallucinations. There is no need to worry. There is usually no change in cognitive functions in fever but high grade fever may cause poor attention and concentration.
Hope I cleared your doubt.
Take Care
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Hello and welcome to Healthcare Magic. Thanks for your query.
Developing hallucinations during a febrile illness is indeed a worrying symptom. Though you have not described what exactly were the symptoms your son had or what sensory modality the hallucinations were (visual, auditory, etc.), they could be indicative a delirium. A serious illness like meningitis can also present with fever and altered sensorium. Sometimes, febrile illnesses are accompanied by seizures, and certain types of seizures (like temporal lobe epilepsy) can present with abnormal behaviour or hallucinations alone.
So, I would advise you to take your son to a doctor as early as possible for a detailed evaluation and further management.
Wish you all the best.
Regards,
Dr. Jonas Sundarakumar
Consultant Psychiatrist
Developing hallucinations during a febrile illness is indeed a worrying symptom. Though you have not described what exactly were the symptoms your son had or what sensory modality the hallucinations were (visual, auditory, etc.), they could be indicative a delirium. A serious illness like meningitis can also present with fever and altered sensorium. Sometimes, febrile illnesses are accompanied by seizures, and certain types of seizures (like temporal lobe epilepsy) can present with abnormal behaviour or hallucinations alone.
So, I would advise you to take your son to a doctor as early as possible for a detailed evaluation and further management.
Wish you all the best.
Regards,
Dr. Jonas Sundarakumar
Consultant Psychiatrist
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