REVIEW ARTICLE


“Doctor, I Hear Music”: A Brief Review About Musical Hallucinations.



Purificacion Alvarez Perez1, Maria Jose Garcia-Antelo2, *, Eduardo Rubio-Nazabal2
Degree in Medicine and Surgery, Centro de atención primaria (CAP) Ventorrillo, A Coruña. Spain.
Degree in Medicine and Surgery, Servicio de Neurología (Department of Neurology). Hospital Universitario A Coruña. A Coruña. Spain.


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Creative Commons License
© 2017 Alvarez Perez et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to this author at the Servicio de Neurología (Department of Neurology). Hospital Universitario A Coruña. A Coruña. Spain; Tel: +034981178000; Fax: 034 981178001; E-mails: marigaran@gmail.com, maria.jose.garcia.antelo@sergas.es


Abstract

Auditory hallucinations are defined as the abnormal perception of sound in the absence of an external auditory stimulus. Musical hallucinations constitute a complex type of auditory hallucination characterized by perception of melodies, music, or songs. Musical hallucinations are infrequent and have been described in 0.16% of a general hospital population. The auditory hallucinations are popularly associated with psychiatric disorders or degenerative neurological diseases but there may be other causes in which the patient evolves favorably with treatment. With this clinical case we want to stress the importance of knowing the causes of musical hallucinations due to the unpredictable social consequences that they can have.

Keywords: Musical hallucinations, Complex auditory hallucinations, Auditory Charles Bonnet syndrome, Music, Dementia, Sound.