Meeting January 19th: Introduction to Delusional Infestation (DI). It takes a village to care for DI sufferers. Definition. history, and understanding.

Dear CES Members,

It is my pleasure to announce that our next meeting will be next Friday, January 19, at UConn's Biology and Physics Building Room 130 (the usual lecture hall).  Refreshments will be provided ~6:30 p.m., to be consumed in the large atrium outside the auditorium.  The business meeting will start at 7  p.m., and our guest speaker's presentation should start between 7:45 and 8 p.m.  Please see the title and description of the presentation, below.

For those who cannot attend in person, please email ctentsoc@gmail.com for the Zoom link.

Talk Title

Introduction to Delusional Infestation (DI). It takes a village to care for DI sufferers. Definition. history, and understanding.

Delusional Infestation is a complex bifurcated disorder which involves psychiatric illness characterized by patients holding a monothematic fixed belief of an infestation of their skin, body, or immediate environment, which is not supported by objective medical evidence coupled with underlying undiagnosed somatic disease. The bizarre aspect of this condition renders physicians often powerless to help because a) they do not understand it and b) they lack the skills, support, and medical culture to help. This talk will describe what Delusional Infestation is, its different forms and consequences of having it, a brief history of the condition, diagnosis, and treatment.

Autobiography.

Dr. Gale Ridge directs the insect information office at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven. She is an expert on human feeding bed bugs and Delusional Infestation.  She is a member of the EPA scientific advisory panel that worked on the revision of pesticide research in the USA, Canada, and Europe which included addressing 25b FIFRA pesticides.  She is an associate professor in the Medical School, Quinnipiac University. Dr. Ridge is the chair of the Connecticut Coalition Against Bed Bugs and in that capacity wrote and got passed into law, “An Act Concerning the Rights and Responsibilities of Landlords and Tenants Regarding the Treatment of Bed Bug Infestations” No. 16-51 in 2016. It became a template for many other subsequent bed bugs laws in the country. Currently she is editor of a book (publishing scheduled for April), titled, “The Physician’s Guide to Delusional Infestation.” Twenty experts and technicians were brought together to address a difficult condition which is a belief system of being infested when parasites are not found.