Chapter 13- Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders Flashcards
Antipsychotics (Neuroleptics)
Medications that alleviate or diminish the intensity of psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations or delusions.
Alogia
Inability to talk; a symptom that often occurs in schizophrenia.
Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome
Characterized by psychotic like symptoms that are less severe and more transient and that lie below the threshold for a full psychotic disorder.
Avolition
Refers to a psychological state that is characterized by a general lack of drive or motivation to pursue meaningful goals. Inability to set goals.
Brief Psychotic Disorder
Brief episodes (lasting a month or less) of otherwise uncomplicated delusional thinking.
Candidate Genes
Genes that are of specific interest to researchers because they are thought to be involved and processes that are known to be aberrant in that disorder (E. G., Serotonin transporter genes in depression, or dopamine receptor genes in schizophrenia).
Catatonic Schizophrenia
Type of schizophrenia in which the central feature is pronounced motor symptoms, of either an excited or a stuporous type, which sometimes make for difficulty in differentiating this condition from a psychotic mood disorder.
Cognitive Remediation
Training efforts designed to help patients improve their neurocognitive (E.G., memory, vigilance) skills. The hope is that this will also help improve patients overall levels of functioning.
Delusion
False belief about reality maintained in spite of strong evidence to the contrary.
Delusional Disorder
Nurturing, giving voice to, and sometimes taking action on beliefs that are considered completely false by others; formerly called paranoia.
Disorganized Schizophrenia
Type of schizophrenia that usually begins at an earlier age and represents a more severe disintegration of the personality then in the other types of schizophrenia.
Disorganized Symptoms
Symptoms such as bizarre behavior or incomprehensible speech.
Dopamine
Neurotransmitter from the catecholamine family that is initially synthesized from tyrosine, an amino acid common in the diet. Dopamine is produced from L-dopa by the enzyme dopamine decarboxylase.
Endophenotypes
Discrete, measurable traits that are thought to be linked to specific genes that might be important in schizophrenia or other mental disorders.
Expressed Emotion
Type of negative communication involving excessive criticism and emotional overinvolvement directed at a patient by family members.
Flat Effect
The lack of emotional expression.
Glutamate
And excitatory neurotransmitter that is widespread throughout the brain.
Hallucination
False perceptions such as things seen or heard that are not real or present.
Linkage Analysis
Genetic research strategy and which occurrence of a disorder in an extended family is compared with that of a genetic marker for a physical characteristic or biological process that is known to be located on a particular chromosome.
Negative Symptoms
Symptoms that reflect an absence or deficit in normal functions (E. G., blunted affect, social withdrawal).
Paranoid Schizophrenia
Type of schizophrenia in which a person is increasingly suspicious, has severe difficulties in interpersonal relationships, and expresses absurd, ill logical, and often changing delusions.
Positive Symptoms
Symptoms that are characterized by something being added to normal behavior or experience. Includes delusions, hallucinations, motor agitation, and marked emotional turmoil.
Prodromal
Considered to be an early (subclinical) stage of schizophrenia, characterized by very low level symptoms or behavioral idiosyncrasies.
Psychosis
Severe impairment in the ability to tell what is real and what is not real.
Schizoaffective Disorder
Form of psychotic disorder in which the symptoms of schizophrenia cooccur with symptoms of a mood disorder. For example, major depression and schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia
Disorder characterized by hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and behavior, as well as problems in self-care and general functioning.
Schizophreniform Disorder
Category of schizophrenic like psychosis less than six months in duration.
Shared Psychotic Disorder
Has delusions and paranoia, and they get someone to believe their delusions/beliefs as well. Example, parent to child. Treatment includes separating the two people and locating the discrepancies in the story.
