Classificaiton Of Schizophrenia Flashcards
What is schizophrenia?
A type of psychosis characterised by a profound disruption of cognitive and emotion.
How many people does schizophrenia affect?
1% of the population at some point in their lifetime.
When is schizophrenia most commonly diagnosed?
Between the ages of 15 and 35, with men and women affected equally.
How do you diagnose it?
A clinician would use a diagnostic manual such as DSM-V, or the ICD
What’s the DSM-V?
The diagnostic and statistical manual of psychiatric disorders.
Its a classification of over 200 mental disorders, grouped in terms of their common features. Version 5 (DSM-V) is the most recent update. Its mostly used in the US.
What’s the ICD?
International classification of diseases
Mostly used in Europe
The most recent update is ICD-11, published in 2018.
What are the two types of symptoms?
Positive
Negative
What is meant by positive symptoms?
Appear to reflect an excess or distortion of normal functioning.
What’s are positive symptoms?
Hallucinations
Delusions
Disorganised speech
Grossly disorganised or catatonic behaviour
What are hallucinations?
Distortions or exaggerations of perception in any of the senses, most notably auditory hallucinations.
What are the types of hallucination?
Auditory - hearing voices
Visual - seeing lights, objects or faces
Olfactory - smelling things
Tactile - feelings such as bugs crawling on you, or something is touching you.
Many people report a voice telling them to do something - harm themselves or someone else, or commenting on their behaviour.
What are delusions?
Firmly held erroneous beliefs that are caused by distortions of reasoning or misinterpretations of perceptions or experiences.
What do delusions involve?
Can sometimes be paranoid in nature - belief that their phone is tapped or someone is following or spying them.
May also involve inflated beliefs about the person’s power and importance - they may believe they’re famous
May also experience delusions of reference, when events in the environment appear to directly related to them - special personal messages are being communicated through the tv or radio.
What is disorganised speech?
The result of abnormal thought processes, where the individual has problems organising his or her thoughts and this shows up in their speech.
What’s an example of disorganised speech?
They may slip from one topic to another (derailment), even in mid-sentence, and in extreme cases their speech may be so incoherent that it sounds like complete gibberish - something that is often referred to as ‘word salad’.
What is grossly disorganised or catatonic behaviour?
Includes the inability or motivation to initiate a task, or to complete it once it is started, which leads to difficulties in daily living and can result in decreased interest in personal hygiene.
What’s an example of grossly disorganised or catatonic behaviour?
The individual may dress or act in ways that appear bizarre to others, such as wearing heavy clothes on a hot summers day.
Catatonic behaviours are characterised by a reduced reaction to the immediate environment, rigid postures or aimless motor activity.
What is meant by negative symptoms?
Appear to reflect a diminution of loss of normal functioning
What are negative symptoms?
Speech poverty
Avolition
Affective flattening
Anhedonia
What is speech poverty?
The lessening of speech fluency and productivity, which reflects slowing or blocked thoughts
What is avolition?
The reduction, difficulty, or inability to initiate and persist in goal-directed behaviour, often mistaken for apparent disinterest
What is affective flattening?
A reduction in the range and intensity of emotional expression, including facial expression, voice tone, eye contact and body language.
What is anhedonia?
A loss of interest or pleasure in all or almost all activities, or a lack of reactivity to normally pleasurable stimuli.
