Psychopathology 2 & Treatments Flashcards
(45 cards)
What is bipolar disorder? What symptoms do you need to be diagnosed?
Major depressive episodes with manic episodes
3 symptoms must persist to be diagnosed: inflated self esteem, decreased need for sleep, flight of ideas, excessive involvement in pleasurable activities
Is Bipolar comorbid? What can manic episodes lead to? What consequences are there to bipolar? Which gender is more likely to suffer with it?
Co morbid with drugs
Excessive gambling
Comorbid with Schizophrenia
Manic episodes can lead to psychotic episodes
More attempted suicides, women attempt more but use less effective methods, men attempt less but ‘succeed’ more
What is Schizophrenia? When is it often diagnosed? Are there gender differences? How long does it last? Are there any underlying causes?
Abnormal disintegration of mental functions
Diagnosed in adolescence and early adulthood
Earlier in men than women
Debilitating
Chronic (long term)
Many aetiologies and underlying diseases
What are some positive symptoms of Schizophrenia?
Delusions: strange beliefs that are rigidly maintained despite no evidence. May believe that their thoughts and actions are controlled by someone else
Hallucinations: sensory experience in the absence of any input, auditory are the most common e.g. hearing voices, can be visual, olfactory and tactile
What are some negative symptoms of Schizophrenia?
Catatonic behaviour (patient is awake but doesn’t respond to others)
Avolition (inability to start goal-orientated behaviours
Social withdrawal
Alogia (poverty of speech)
Anhedonia (inability to experience pleasure)
What are some examples of disorganised behaviour and disorganised speech?
Disorganised speech:
word salad, tangential communication style (jump from one topic to another), repetitive speech
Disorganised behaviour: bizarre behaviour, inappropriate and a lack of inhibition
What are some cognitive symptoms of Schizophrenia in executive function and social cognition?
Executive function: Issues with planning, cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency, ability to solve complex problems, working memory
Social cognition: deficits apparent prior to the onset of psychosis. This is the best predictor of clinical outcomes
What is the two hit hypothesis in Sz? Is it a neurodegenerative or neurodevelopmental disorder? What does neurodegenerative and neurodevelopment mean?
2 hit hypothesis: genetic disposition and cannabis abuse
Neurodevelopmental: early cognitive or behavioural/personality
Neurodegenerative: early adolescence onset of frank psychosis
Sz is both neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative
What is the dopamine hypothesis? What is the evidence for this in antipsychotics?
Abnormally high levels of dopamine
This particularly affects the positive symptoms of Sz
When we give patients antipsychotics it reduces hallucinations and delusions
Very little effect for negative and cognitive symptoms
How does the brain of a Sz patient differ to healthy brains?
Enlarged ventricles, more grey matter loss in Sz patients
hypoactivity in prefrontal cortex
What are some prenatal risk factors of Sz?
Influenza virus
Maternal malnutrition
Birth complications e.g. O2 deprivation
What are some examples of social risk factors of Sz?
Low socioeconomic factors
Poverty
Family environment
urban upbringing
Migration
Low IQ
What are phobias?
Intense irrational fear coupled with great effort to avoid
Knowledge that the fear is groundless doesn’t diminish the fear
Phobias can be specific or social
What is a social phobia? When do they emerge? Do these patients have a high risk to anything?
Intense fear of being watched or judged by others
These can be negative or positive evaluations
Emerges in childhood or adolescence
High risk to substance abuse
What is a specific phobia? What are some treatments for this?
Extreme, irrational fear of particular objects or situations
e.g. spiders
teach the person to relax in the presence of the phobias through exposure therapy, cognitive therapy or meditation
What is a panic disorder? What are the symptoms? What other disorder is it accompanied with?
Occurrence of unexpected panic attacks
Symptoms: restricted breathing, dizziness, sweating, trembling, heart palpitations, chest pains
Accompanied by agoraphobia. Fear of being in situations where escape may be difficult
What is general anxiety disorder? What are the symptoms?
Continuous and persuasive feelings of anxiety
Symptoms: feelings of inadequacy, oversensitive, difficulty concentrating, bodily symptoms
What is Beck’s Anxiety Inventory?
Symptoms in a list such as feeling hot, scared, face flushed, nervous, terrified
Patient ranks these from Not at all, to Mildly, to Moderately, to Severely
What is OCD? What age does it emerge?
Obsessions: recurrent unwanted and disturbing thoughts
Compulsions: ritualistic behaviours to deal with obsessions
Patients are aware their behaviour is irrational
Early onset
What is a stress disorder? What are the symptoms? What is the difference between an acute stress disorder and PTSD?
Triggered by identifiable and horrific events
Psychological effects: period of numbness and disassociation
Acute stress disorder: recurrent of nightmares/waking flashbacks
Post traumatic stress: enduring reaction to trauma, persistent for one month after the stressor
What is PTSD? What are the symptoms?
Chronic and sometimes a lifelong disorder following a traumatic event
Symptoms:
re-experiencing symptoms
arousal symptoms
avoidance symptoms
emotional numbness
loss of interest
survivor guilt
What happens in the brain of patients with an anxiety disorder?
Malfunctioning autonomic nervous system
For specific and social phobias: hyperactivation in the amygdala and insula
What happens in the brains of patients with PTSD?
Hypoactivation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal cortex
Decreased activity of the ACC, which is associated with the re-experience and avoidance
Prefrontal cortex- dissociation
How can classical conditioning be used to explain specific phobias? What is vicarious conditioning?
Classical conditioning for specific phobias
Negative event (US) leads to fear (UR)
Object/cue linked to the event (CS)
Vicarious conditioning: a person acquires a conditioned response by observing someone else’s fear
