What has her behavior been like on the floor since initial admission (ie, was this transition abrupt... any objective signs in the interim of mania or depression?). Your main differential is going to be depression with significant psychomotor ******ation and avolition (which is NOT catatonia if catatonic criteria are not met). Also, I think Kraepelin was right in viewing Catatonia as end stage psychosis, but he was wrong in attributing it solely as a state of the Dementia Praecox (when he incidentally clearly describes patients we would now call catatonic as mixed states in the Manic Depressive Insanity). Nevertheless, people do not become so psychomotor ******ed depressed that they become catatonic... there has to be a psychotic component
I like the BFCRS, but ultimately Catatonia is a clinical judgment. Like any psychiatric diagnosis, the symptoms can be varied and extend far beyond the DSM, but the current criteria are *reasonably* well validated. THINK THROUGH THE CRITERIA Make sure you do your motoric exam correctly (when assessing waxy flexibility or catalepsy you have to instruct the patient that they are not obligated to leave their limb in the position you move it, etc). Fish's psychopathology/Fish's schizophrenia have good instructions on this. Though not part of the criteria, I like to look for gegenhalten, mitgehen, and mitmachen.
Contrary to dogma in psychiatry, the evidence for Benzos in catatonia is REALLY weak (read the 2008 Cochrane review on this). A PARENTERAL ativan challenge (at a low dose, don't increase it to 7mg TID like uptodate says to do) is ok for diagnosis and to get the patient moving to prevent DVTs but often not sustainable as treatment. The evidence is better for ECT and antipsychotics. Contrary to what Max Fink says, you will probably NOT throw your patient into NMS if you give him or her antipsychotics (this is based on really weak evidence as well).
Normally your posts are great but there is so much garbage in this post I don't know what you were thinking
1. catatonia is NOT simply and end-point of psychosis and can result from a range of non-psychotic diagnoses (manic-depressive illness, melancholia and autism being the big 3). Yes you may see psychosis but it is wrong to conflate psychosis and catatonia unless it is clear that the catatonia is a response to psychosis (for example a delusion that the world will collapse if the patient moves).
2. I wouldn't pay much attention to Kraepelin here, he got it wrong as he did with so many other things. Kahlbaum hit the nail on the head when he connected the "tension insanity" to affective disturbance. No psychosis is required for catatonia to emerge
3. You can of course see catatonia in organic disease - I have seen catatonic features in limbic encephalitis, CJD, and bvFTD
4. whether there is a difference between depressive stupor and melancholia with catatonic features is a point of contention. but yes, you can be so depressed that you become catatonic
5. autism and intellectual disability commonly are associated with catatonia in people without any evidence of psychosis
6. periodic catatonia is another diagnosis that I do not think it is accurate to characterize as a psychotic disorder (as there are no psychotic symptoms) and often responds marvellously to benzos and neuroleptics are not indicated
7. I think it is disingenous to throw in a cochrane review to trash benzos. Of course there is no good trial data on catatonia, these patients cannot usually consent to participate in RCTs! The fact is, you do not need an RCT to show you whether something works when the results are so blindingly obvious as they are in catatonia with benzos (mania's response to lithium was another finding that did not need an RCT so striking were the results, though Cade's 1949 study was nevertheless followed up by a 1954 controlled trial by Schou)
8. The one thing I would agree with is that benzos don't always work. ECT is by far and away the most effective treatment, but even ECT does not always work
9. I would also agree the evidence of harm from antipsychotics is sometimes overstated, but I would in generally strongly discourage the use of conventional neuroleptics, and be cautious about atypical neuroleptics. Patients can and do develop NMS particularly in the malignant form of catatonia, when given neuroleptics, particularly haloperidol. Again, of course the "evidence-base" is weak because you cannot ethically study this due to lack of informed consent and the question of the very real potential for harm. In some cases it is certainly appropriate to institute neuroleptics, particularly as the catatonia begins to clear
10. hysteria and PTSD are other diagnoses where a catatonia syndrome can occur. of course it is somewhat debatable whether this represents a true catatonia syndrome, or not
11. if you don't ramp up the benzos to as high as tolerated when not seeing an effect, you are going to miss the effect. Yes, sometimes you need to be giving 7mg tid or higher to patients in order to see an effect. often using oral lorazepam can work fine, parenteral is only needed if you can't get the pt to take it orally. We are also underutilizing barbiturates imho, which is what they used in the past, and may be appropriate for more refractory cases