Module 6: Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Flashcards
The development of _________ symptoms marks the formal onset of the first episode of schizophrenia
psychotic symptoms
Many argue that schizophrenia is a…
recent disorder
What factors were speculated to have been involved in the sudden and escalating emergence of schizophrenia in modern life?
increasing industrialization, the movement of people to cities from towns and countryside, and environmental changes
Other people argue that specific schizophrenia symptoms were not recorded in the earlier times because people viewed…
mental disorder differently
Who was the first to put negative symptoms together with positive symptoms?
Emil Kraepelin
Positive (psychotic) symptoms include:
Exaggerated and distorted adaptations of normal behaviour.
Include the more obvious signs of psychosis: delusions, hallucinations, though & speech disorder, catatonic behaviour
Negative symptoms include:
The absence or loss of typical behaviours and experiences
May take the form of sparse speech, and language, social withdrawal, avolition
Anhedonia
Diminished attention/concentration
What is the most common form of hallucinations?
Auditory
Persecutory delusions
Individuals believe that they are being pursued or targeted for sabotage, ridicule, or deception
** “paranoid” delusions
Referential delusions
Belief that common, meaningless occurrences have significant and personal relevance
Somatic delusions
Beliefs related to the patient’s body
Religious delusions
The belief that biblical or other religious passages or stories offer the way to destroy or save the world
Delusions of grandeur
A belief in divine or special powers that can change the course of history or provide a communication channel to God
Research suggests that hallucinations develop from a…
misattribution of sensory experience
Avolition
The inability to initiate and persevere in activities
Aka ‘apathy’
Anhedonia
Denotes a lack of pleasure or reward experiences
What are both required to push people into psychosis?
Vulnerability (diathesis) and disorder promoting events (stress)
For a diagnosis of schizophrenia to be made, symptoms must persist for at least…
6 months
For a diagnosis of schizophrenia to be made, the individual must demonstrate one core positive symptom
TRUE or FALSE
TRUE
How does brief psychotic disorder differ from schizophrenia?
duration of less than one month
How does schizophreniform disorder differ from schizophrenia?
duration of at least one to six months
Delusional disorder
Persistent delusions for one month or more without overtly bizarre behaviour or other schizophrenia symptoms
How does schizoaffective disorder differ from schizophrenia?
Concurrent with a major depressive or manic episode
Meehl’s Theory of Schizotaxia, Schizotypy, and Schizophrenia
Proposes a biological diathesis - hypokrisia
A gene - schizogene - interacts with the environment and other genes to cause this diathesis
Hypokrisia produces “cognitive slippage”
Cognitive slippage can give rise to aversive drift
A person experiencing cognitive slippage and aversive drift is termed a “schizotype”
Hypokrisia, cognitive slippage, and aversive drift are modified or intensified by personality, temperament, and cognitive traits, and this takes place within stressful or supportive social
Neurodevelopmental Diathesis-Stress Theories
Subtle brain injuries that affect normal maturational demands
Biological vulnerability to schizophrenia can make it difficult to cope with surging hormones on brain chemistry
All diathesis-stress theories of schizophrenia hypothesize a ___________ vulnerability that is either inherited or acquired very early in life
biological
Dopamine Hypothesis
Surge of dopamine activity that produces psychotic symptoms (drugs can have this effect - but medication can also block dopamine to mediate these symptoms)
Social skills training and cognitive remediation are two treatments that are most effective with _________ patients
younger
Prodrome
Refers to the period before the appearance of psychotic symptoms when vulnerable adolescents often become withdrawn and suspicious
