Psychological correlates of the course of Sydenham's chorea. Repeat evaluations of a case.

Published reports provide contradictory evidence concerning the cause, nature, and course of Syndeham's chorea: physiological, psychological, and interractional hypotheses have been advanced. Reports supporting any of these views suffer from lack of detail, objective observations, and/or longitudinal behavioral sampling. This case was studied longitudinally with numerous psychological tests. They revealed acute encephalopathy and severe personality disturbance in the acute stage, followed by rapid and lasting clearing of both symptoms. Thus, this case provided evidence consistent with virtually all published reports and with each hypothesis about Sydenham's chorea, suggesting the need for more careful longitudinal studies and a conceptual framework which can more fully embrace all the data.