Psychosis Flashcards
What is psychosis?
Presence of hallucinations or delusions
What is a hallucination?
Perception without a stimulus
What sensory modality do hallucinations occur in?
Can be in any sensory modality
What usually causes visual hallucinations?
Problem with eyes or brain
What are the types of hallucinations that a person may normally experience?
Hypnogogic
Hypnopompic
What are hyponogogic hallucinations?
Hallucinations experienced just before falling asleep
What are hypnopompic hallucinations?
Hallucinations occurring when are waking up or have just woken up
What is a delusion?
Abnormal belief, outside of norms, unshakeable
What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?
Auditory hallucinations
Passivity experiences
Thought withdrawal, broadcast or insertion
Delusional perceptions
Somatic hallucinations
What are some examples of commonly experienced auditory hallucinations by a patient with schizophrenia?
Thought echo - hearing thoughts aloud
Running commentary - voices conversing about patient, referring to patient in third person
What is meant by passivity experiences?
Patient believes a feeling or action is caused by an external force
What is thought withdrawal, broadcast or insertion?
Thought withdrawal - thoughts are being taken out of the mind
Thought broadcast - thoughts are being made known to others
Thought insertion - thoughts implanted by others
What is delusional perception?
Attribution of new meaning to a normally perceived object
What is a somatic hallucination?
Perception that something is touching the body or something is happening inside the body
What are the types of symptoms of schizophrenia? What do they each mean?
Positive symptoms, meaning they add to the patient
Negative symptoms, meaning they take away from the patient
What are some examples of positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
Delusions
Hallucinations
Lack of insight
What are some examples of negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
Social withdrawal
Self neglect
Emotional flattening
Underactivity
What are the types of schizophrenia?
Simple
Paranoid
Hebephrenic
Undifferentiated
Catatonic
What is simple schizophrenia?
Loss of drive and interest
Self absorbed attitude, social withdrawal
No hallucinations or delusions
What is hebephrenic schizophrenia?
Disjointed behaviour, speech affected
Hallucinations and delusions, but do not dominate
What is undifferentiated schizophrenia?
Insufficient symptoms to meet criteria of any other types
Or lots of symptoms that fit more than one type
What is paranoid schizophrenia?
Hallucinations and delusions are prominent
What is the pathophysiology of schizophrenia?
Overactivity or underactivity of dopamine pathways
Brain changes
What are two examples of dopamine pathways affected in patients with schizophrenia?
Mesolimbic pathway
Mesocortical pathway
How is schizophrenia treated?
Typical antipsychotics
Ayptical antipsychotics
How do typical antipsychotics work?
Block D2 receptors in all CNS dopaminergic pathways
Main action being on mesolimbic and mesocortical pathways
How do atypical antipsychotics work?
Same as typical antipsychotics, except low affinity for D2 receptors
What is the advantage of atypical antipsychotics over typical antipsychotics?
Milder side effects
How is the mesolimbic pathway affected in patients with schizophrenia?
Overactive
How is the mesocortical pathway affected in patients with schizophrenia?
Underactive
What are the brain changes in patients with schizophrenia?
Enlarged ventricles
Reduced hippocampal formation, amygdala, parahippocampal gyrus, prefrontal cortex
