[Paranoid schizophrenic patient with unstable spinal fracture].

The misdiagnosis of somatic illness in the psychiatric population can have grave consequences. Somatic symptoms are easily overseen or misinterpreted and a careful history and examination is essential when approaching this group of patients. We report a case of a patient with a history of paranoid schizophrenia, who had her somatic symptoms misinterpreted as being of psychiatric origin. This misinterpretation gave rise to an admission to a psychiatric ward of a patient who actually presented with an unstable spinal fracture.