A person who was found wandering with a purpose of meeting a spiritual guru whom he has never known. He was well groomed and denied having any knowledge of his past life. He denies being forgetful. His relatives repoed him being missing from home for a week. What is the most likely diagnosis?
Although both dissociative fugue and dissociative amnesia are both based upon amnesia, DSM-IV TR considers them as a separate entity. In Dissociative fugue the primary phenomenon is generalised amnesia. It is associated with 2 other secondary phenomenon - travel with a purpose and a new identity. In dissociative amnesia the travel is purposeless. They wander in perplexity and attract attention to themselves. Ref: Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: DSM-V and Beyond, Edited by Paul F. Dell, John A. O'Neil, 2009, Pages 430-431; Loewenstein and Putnam, 2004.
Dissociative fugue
Dissociative amnesia
Schizophrenia
Dementia