I also have a question. This is often worse if one or more family members are also, in some manner, disabled. Often a nurse case manager can assist the patient in more accurately perceiving options and outcome. It may also be necessary to remind the family that their actions are merely increasing the patient's perceptions of disability. Fix one thing and up crops another.
Histrionic patients use physical appearance and complaints to draw attention to themselves.
They are dramatic, and they are easily influenced by others. While they can ramble endlessly and dramatically, what they tell you actually lacks detail. For those managing such cases, they are often struck by noting that the histrionic patient's relationships are shallow while the patient feels the relationships to be emotionally intimate. This is a pervasive pattern, largely established by early adulthood and characterized by attention seeking and excessive emotional expression. When such patients believe they are ill or injured, they use their physical complaints to meet secondary gain needs for attention, affection and often relief of responsibilities to care for others for whom they would otherwise be responsible.