PSYCHOSIS Flashcards
What is psychosis?
when you perceive or interpret reality in a very different way from people around you. It is characterised by perception, thought disorganisation, negative symptoms and psychomotor dysfunction
What are hallucinations?
Perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus
What types of hallucinations can you have?
Auditory
Basically
Gustatory
Olfactory
Somatic
Special forms - Hypnogogic, hypnopompic, functional, reflex and extracampine
What are perceptions?
The process of making sense of the physical information we recieve from our five sensory modalities
What are illusions?
Misperceptions of real external stimuli
What is a pseudohallucination?
A perceptual experience which differs from a hallucination in that it appears to arise in the subjective inner space of the mind, not through one o.f the external sensory organs e.g flashbacks in PTSD
It is a term also used to describe hallucinations that patients actually recognise as false perceptions i.e.e they have insight into the fact they are hallucinating
What are elementary hallucinations?
Single, unstructured sounds e.g. buzzing or whistling
What are complex hallucinations and how are they classified?
Spoken phrases, sentences that are classified as first [erson, second person or third person
What is gedankenlautwerden?
An auditory hallucination where a patient hears voices which anticipate what he or she is about to think, or which state what the patient is thinking as he thinks it. E.g. thought echo
What is echo de la pense?
Auditory hallucinations where voices echoe thoights just after they have occurred
Whats most likely to cause visual hallucinations?
Organic brain disorders e.g. dementia, epilepsy and brain tumours
Psychoactive substance use - alcoho, LSD, glue sniffing
What is an autoscopic hallucination?
The experience of seeing an image of oneself in an external space
What is the Charles bonnet syndrome?
Condition where pt experience complex visual hallucinations associated with no other psychiatric symptoms or impairment in conciousness
It usually occurs in the elderly and is associated with loss of vision
What are lilliputian hallucinations?
Hallucinations of miniature people or animals
What are extracampine hallucinations?
False perceptions that occur outside the limits of a persons normal sensory filed e.g. hearing voices from 100 miles away
What are somatic hallucinations? What do they include
Hallucinations of bodily sensation
Includes superficial, visceral and kinaesthetic hallucinations
What are superficial somatic hallucinations? What does it involve?
Sensations on or just below the skin
May be tactile (skin being touched/pricked), thermal (false perception of heat or cold) or hygric (false perception of fluid)
What are visceral somatic hallucinations?
False perceptions of the internal organs e.g. organs stretching or vibrating
What are kinaesthetic somatic hallucinations?
False perceptions of joint or muscle sense
E.g. describing limbs being twisted
What are olfactory and gustatory hallucinations? When can they present?
False perceptions of smell and taste
Schizophrenia, mood disorders and temporal lobe epilepsy!
What are hypnagogic hallucinations?
False perceptions in any modality that occur as a person goes to sleep
What is the fleeting but distressing sensation of free falling just as one is about to fall asleep an exapmple of?
A hypnagogic kinaesthetic hallucination
What are hypnopompic hallucinations?
False perceptions in any modality that occur when a person wakes up
What is a functional hallucinations?
When a normal sensory stimulus is required to precipitate a hallucination in that same sensory modality e.g. voices are heard when the door bell rings
What are reflex hallucinations?
When a normal sensory stimulus in one modality is required to precipitate a hallucination in a different sensory modality e.g. voices are heard when the lights switch on
What are thought disorders?
a disorganized way of thinking that leads to abnormal ways of expressing language when speaking and writing.
Classified as abnormal beliefs and disorganised thinking
What are examples of disorganised thinking?
Poverty of speech
Poverty of content of speech
Pressure of speech
Distractingly speech
Tangentiality/circumstantiality
Loosening of associations
Word salad
Clanging
Neologisms
Loss of goal
Perseveration
Echolalia
Irrelevant answers
Blocking
Stilted speech
Self-reference
Flight of ideas
What is the difference between tangentiality and circumstantiality?
Circumstantiality : The goal of the conversation is reached in the end by a circuitous route
Tangentiality: characterised by patients wandering away from a topic without returning to it.
What is echolalia?
Repeating words or phrases of the interviewer
What is flight of ideas?
when someone talks quickly and erratically, jumping rapidly between ideas and thoughts.
What is clanging?
speech in which word choice is governed by word sound rather than meaning; word choice may show rhyming or punning associations
What is knights move thinking?
Aka loosening of association
unexpected, and illogical, connections between ideas.
What is thought blocking?
When pt experiences a sudden cessation to their flow of thought, often mid-sentence
What are expamples of disorders of thought content?
Delusions
Overvalued ideas
Obsessional thinking
Magical thinking
What are delusions?
A false belief based on incorrect inference about external reality that is firmly sustained
It’s not a belief ordinarily accepted by others of the persons culture/religion
How can we classify delusions?
Primary or secondary
Mood congruent or mood incongruent
Bizarre or non-bizarre
What are primary delusions?
Do not occur in response to any previous psycho pathological state
What are secondary delusions?
Delusions occurring as a consequence of pre-existing psycho pathological states
Whats the difference between mood congruent and mood incongruent delusions?
Mood congruent are when the contents of the delusions are appropriate to the patients mood
Incongruent is when its opposite
What are bizarre vs non-bizarre delusions
Bizarre delusions are those which are completely impossible e.g. the belief that aliens have planted radioactive detonators in the pt brain
Non-bizarre - involve situations that could possibly occur in real life, such as being followed, deceived or loved from a distance
What are persecutory delusions?
False belief that one is being harmed, threatened, cheated, harassed etc
What are grandiose delusions?
False belief that one is exceptionally powerful, talented or important (including having magical powers)
What are delusions of reference?
False belief that certain objects, people, or events have intense personal significance and refer specifically to oneself e.g. tv newsreader is taking to them
What are religious delusions?
False belief pertaining to a religious theme
What is erotomania?
False belief that another person is in love with one
What is clerambault syndrome?
A woman believes that a man, frequently older and of a higher status, is in love with her
What is morbid jealousy/othello syndrome?
False belief that one’s lover has been unfaithful
What are examples of delusions of misidentification?
Capgras syndrome
Fregoli syndrome
What is Capgras syndrome?
Belief that a familiar person has been replaced by an exact double - an imposter
What is Fregoli syndrome?
Belief that a complete stranger is actually a familiar person already known to one and is in disguise
What are nihilistic delusions?
False belied that oneself, others or the old is non-existent or about to end
In severe forms pt claim that nothing, even themselves exists
What are somatic delusions?
individual believes something is wrong with part or all of their body
What are delusions of control/passivity?
False belief that one’s thoughts, feelings, actions or impulses are controlled by an external agency
It includes delusions of thought control - insertion, withdrawal, broadcasting
What are delusions of guilt?
The person feels guilty to an extent that it may not be real. The person may believe that he or she is responsible for some great disaster with which there can be no possible connection.
Whats the risk with morbid jealousy?
Risk of homocide!
What group of people is morbid jealousy common in?
Alcoholism, organic psychosis especially dysfunction of frontal lobe, paranoid psychosis, schizophrenia, and affective disorder
What is folie a deux?
Induced delusional disorder
an identical or similar mental disorder affecting two or more individuals who are close; usually one has a diagnosed psychotic disorder and the other does not. Treated by separating the individuals
What are overvalued ideas?
A plausible belief that a pt becomes preoccupied with to an unreasonable extent. This causes considerable distress to the pt or those living around them.
Distinguished from delusions by the lack of a gross abnormality in reasoning i.e. they can often given fairly logical reasons for their beliefs
What are typical disorders that feature overvalued ideas?
Anorexia nervosa
Hypochondriacal disorder
Dysmorphophobia
Paranoid personality disorder
Morbid jealousy
What are positive symptms?
Symptoms that are actively produciced e.g. delusions, hallucinations, loosening of association, bizarre speech or behaviour
What are negative symptoms?
A clinical deficit
Include a marked apathy, poverty of thought/speech, blunt fo affect, social isolation, poor self care and cognitive deficits
Whats the usual presentation order of pos and neg symptoms in psychosis?
Usually positive symptoms first and negative symptoms develop after
Does psychosis always present with psychomotor function?
No its very rare and is invariably due to EPS from neuroleptic medication but it can occur from the disease itself
Cause is unknown
What is catatonic behaviour?
Any excessive or decreased motor activity that is apparently purposeless and includes abnormalities of movement, tone or position
What are common motor symptoms seen in schizophrenia?
Catatonic rigidity
Catatonic posturing
Catatonic negativism
Catatonic waxy flexibility
Catatonic excitement
Catatonic stupor
Echopraxia
Mannerisms
Stereotypies
Tics
Whats the most common cause of psychosis?
Schizophrenia
Whats the ICD10 diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia?
1 or more of the following symptoms
• thought echo, insertion, withdrawal or broadcast
• Delusions of control or passivity; delusional perception
• Hallucinatory voices in third person giving a running commentary or discussing the pt amongst themselves
• persistent delusions
Or
2 or more of the following :
• persistent hallucinations
• Thought disorganisation
• Catatonic symptms
• Negative symptoms
Symptoms should be present for at least 1 month.
It should not be diagnosed in the presence of an organic brain disease or during drug intoxication or alcohol withdrawal.
What are schneider’s first rank symptoms?
• Delusional perception
• Delusions of thought control: insertion, withdrawal, broadcast
• Delusions of control: passivity experiences of feelings, impulse and somatic
• Hallucinations: audible thoughts, voices arguing or discussing the patient, voices giving a running commentary
Whats the course of schizophrenia?
Some people have episodes of illness lasting weeks or months with full remission of symptoms between each episode
others have a fluctuating course in which symptoms are continuous
others again have very little variation in their symptoms of illness over the course of years.
What are the stages of schizophrenia?
Premorbid
Prodromal
Active phase
Residual phase
What is the prodromal phase of schizophrenia?
The stage before psychosis onset which can last from a few days to 18 months. It’s characterised by increasing distress and a decline in personal and social functioning.
Whats the epidemiology of schizophrenia?
1% population
1.5-3% have psychosis
What is the typical age of onset for schizophrenia?
Men 15-25
Women 25-35 and second peak at 45-50
Whats the prevalence in m:w for schizophrenia?
1:1