Abstract

Over a period of a few months, several cases of extremely rare childhood syndromes were referred to us for psychiatric evaluation and treatment. We report three clinical cases with multiple overlapping psychological features: Cornelia de Lange, Neuhauser, and Incontinentia pigmenti syndrome. Each child was approached in a unique and individual way. The first issue considered in therapy was insomnia, and our intervention was effective, leading to improvements in duration as well as quality of sleep. Attention and concentration difficulties that were present were alleviated by neurofeedback treatment. At the same time, the treatment had a positive effect on the decrease of self-injury behavior, aggression, and irritability. To conclude, psychiatric treatment of children with rare syndromes improved the quality of life of the child and family, and the multidisciplinary approach provided the optimum level of care within the healthcare system.