Psychotic disorders Flashcards
What are the main types of psychotic disorders?
(5)
- Schizophrenia
- Schizoaffective disorder
- Delusional disorder
- Acute psychosis
- Transient psychosis
What does the term schizophrenia actually mean?
Splitting of the mind
“When your mind and reality don’t agree with each other”
What is the prevalence of schizophrenia in the UK?
1%
What is the typical age of onset for schizophrenia?
Late teens to mid-30s
Which gender group tends to see a later average age of onset of schizophrenia?
Female (25-35) Male (18-25)
Members of which gender group are more likely to develop schizophrenia?
- Males (4:1), however, the prevalence is actually the same (1%) most likely due to higher mortality in males
Is schizophrenia a disease of the rich or of the poor?
There is increased prevalence in lower socioeconomic classes. However, this is probably more likely the result of social drift (impairment as a result of disease leading to drift down social scale) than social causation.
Which groups in the UK are most classically associated with schizophrenia?
Migrants (relative risk of 4.6)
What are some of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia?
- Hallucinations
- Delusions
- Formal thought disorder
- Disorganised behaviour
What are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia?
- Under-activity
- Anhedonia (inability to experience pleasure in activities such as sport ect.)
- Apathy (Lack of interest/enthusiasm)
- Avolution (severe reduction of external expression of emotion)
- Reduced attention
- Social withdrawal
- Speech ↓
- Motivation ↓
- Emotional responsiveness ↓ (flat affect)
What does the terms “ideas of reference” mean with regard to schizophrenia?
It is “the notion that everything one perceives in the world relates to one’s own destiny.”
What are the most commonly seen symptoms in acute schizophrenia?
- Lack of insight (94%)
- Auditory hallucinations (74%)
- Ideas of reference (70%)
What are the most commonly seen symptoms in chronic schizophrenia?
- Social withdrawal (74%)
- Under activity (56%)
- Lack of convention (54%)
What are the types of auditory hallucinations seen with schizophrenia?
- Complex hallucinations such as:
- Hearing thoughts aloud (1st person) - thought echo
- Hearing thoughts discussing patient (3rd person)
- Hearing running commentary
- These occur more commonly than more elementary hallucinations such as a single repeated sound or indeed than 2nd person auditory hallucinations which tend to be more associated with mood disorders with a psychotic element.
What are the 5 characteristic symptoms of schizophrenia as set out in criterion A of the DSM-V?
- Delusions
- Hallucinations
- Disorganized speech
- Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
- Negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression or avolition)
What criteria does the ICD-10 set out for the diagnosis of schizophrenia?
At least one of: (first rank symptoms) ABCD
-
Auditory hallucinations
- Thought echo
- 3rd person hallucinations
- Running commentary
-
Broadcast of thought
- Thought withdrawal
- Thought broadcast
- Thought insertion
-
Controlled thought
- Made ‘affect’ (feelings controlled by other)
- Made ‘volition’ (acts controlled by other)
- Somatic passivity
-
Dellusional paranoia
- Dellusional perception
- Made ‘impulses’ (impulses that are not own)
or at least two of:
- Other hallucinations
- Thought disorder
- Catatonic behaviour,
- “negative” symptoms
- Significant and consistent change in behaviour for at least a month, in absence of intoxication, brain disease or extensive manic / depressive symptoms.
What are the predominant features of paranoid schizophrenia versus other forms of schizophrenia?
Prominent delusions, usually + hallucinations
What are the predominant features of hebephrenic schizophrenia versus other forms of schizophrenia?
Prominent disorganized mood, behaviour, speech.
What are the predominant features of residual schizophrenia versus other forms of schizophrenia?
After a period of positive symptoms subside, negative symptoms remain
What are the predominant features of simple schizophrenia versus other forms of schizophrenia?
Negative symptoms, without positive symptoms
What is the difference between a hallucination and an illusion?
Hallucinations are perceptions occurring in the absence of any external stimulus. (eg hearing a voice)
Illusions are misperceptions of real external stimuli. (eg perceiving a hanging coat as a person)
What is the difference between a hallucination and a pseudohallucination? Are both associated with schizophrenia?
- Pseudohallucinations are perceived within the mind and the patient recognises that they are not real external stimuli. (eg a voice inside my head).
- They tend not to be associated with true psychotic experiences, despite sometimes being very traumatic.
- Hallucinations are perceived as real external stimuli and therefore insight tends to be reduced. (eg an invisible person talking to me). They are one of the classic symptoms of psychosis.
Are visual hallucinations typically associated with schizophrenia?
No, they tend to be more associated with organic disturbances of the brain. This includes delirium, occipital lobe tumours, epilepsy and dementia.
Certain substances can also induce visual hallucinations - LSD, petrol/glue sniffing, alcoholic hallucinosis.
Apart from visual and auditory hallucinations, what other types of hallucinations do patients sometimes report?
- Somatic hallucinations -
- tactile
- kinaesthetic
- visceral
- Olfactory hallucinations
- Gustatory hallucinations
Is a delusion always false?
No. A delusion might end up being true but what makes it a delusion is the logic used to come to the conclusion. Eg. A man’s delusional belief that his wife is having an affair may actually be true, but it remains a delusion because the logic behind his belief is that she is part of some top secret sexual conspiracy to prove that he is homosexual.
What are the different ways that we classify a delusion?
- Primary or secondary
- Mood congruent or mood incongruent
- Bizarre or non-bizarre (impossibility)
- By content
What is the difference between a primary and a secondary delusion?
Primary delusions appear suddenly without any mental event leading to them.
Secondary delusions occur secondary to a morbid experience, such as a change in mood, an hallucination, or another delusion.
What is an overvalued idea with reference to psychosis?
A plausible belief that a patient becomes preoccupied with to an unreasonable extent.
What are the thought disorders that are common symptoms in the psychotic patient?
- Circumstantial speech (non-linear thought pattern)
- Tangential speech (train of thought wanders - lack of focus)
- Flights of ideas
- Derailment (Knight’s move thinking - sequence of unrelated or only remotely related ideas)
- Thought blocking
- Neologism (new words)
- Perseveration (repetition of a particular response)
- Echolalia (repetition of another persons spoken words)
- Irrelevant answers
What is circumstantial speech/thinking (one of the thought disorders of psychosis and mania)?
Speech or thought that is delayed in reaching its final goal because of the over inclusion of detail and diversions.
What is tangential speech/thinking (one of the thought disorders of psychosis and mania)?
Speech or thought that never reaches its destination as the speaker diverts from the original train of thought and never ends up returning to the original point. This is more psychopathological than circumstantial speech which is often found in normal individuals.
What is flight of ideas (one of the thought disorders of psychosis and mania)?
This is markedly accelerated thinking resulting in a stream of connected concepts. In schizophrenia the link between the different ideas become incoherent.
What is loosening of association (derailment/knight’s move thinking)?
This is when a patient’s train of thought shifts suddenly from one very loosely or unrelated idea to the next.
What is thought blocking (one of the thought disorders of psychosis)?
The patient experiences a sudden cessation to their flow of thought, often in mid sentence (observed as sudden breaks in speech)