Schizophrenia

Question 1

What’s a diagnosis?

Answer 1

deciding whether someone has a particular mental illness using classifications.

Question 2

What’s schizophrenia?

Answer 2

it’s a type of psychosis characterised by a profound disruption of cognition and emotion so that contact with external reality and insight are impaired.

Question 3

What is classification?

Answer 3

organising symptoms into categories based on which symptoms cluster together in sufferers.

Question 4

What are positive symptoms?

Answer 4

symptoms that appear to reflect an excess or distortion of normal functioning

Question 5

What are the positive symptoms of Schizophrenia?

Answer 5

1. Hallucinations
2. Delusions/Paranoia/Grandeur
3. Disorganised speech
4. Disorganised/catatonic behaviour

Question 6

What are Hallucinations?

Answer 6

Distortions or exaggerations of perception in any of the senses, most notably auditory hallucinations.

Question 7

What are Delusions?

Answer 7

Firmly held erroneous beliefs that are caused by distortions of reasonings or misinterpretations of perceptions or experiences.

Question 8

What is Disorganised speech?

Answer 8

when an individual has problems organising his or her thoughts and this shows up in their speech.

Question 9

What is disorganised/ catatonic behaviour.

Answer 9

includes the inability or motivation to initiate a task, or to complete it once it starts.

Question 10

What are negative symptoms?

Answer 10

They appear to reflect a diminution or loss of normal functioning.

Question 11

What is Speech Poverty?

Answer 11

The lessening of speech fluency and productivity, which is thought to reflect slowing or blocked thoughts.

Question 12

What is Avolition?

Answer 12

A reduction of interests and desires as well as an inability to initiate and persist in goal-directed behaviour.

Question 13

What is Affective Flattening?

Answer 13

A reduction in the range and intensity of emotional expression, including facial expression, voice tone, eye contact and body language

Question 14

What are delusions of persecution?

Answer 14

the belief that others want to harm, threaten or manipulate you.

Question 15

What are the delusions of grandeur?

Answer 15

the belief that they’re an important individual, even god-like have extraordinary powers.

Question 16

What are delusions of control?

Answer 16

the belief that their body is under external control.

Question 17

What are the delusions of reference?

Answer 17

The belief that events in the environment appear to be directly related to them.

Question 18

What is a symptom overlap?

Answer 18

it’s the fact that symptoms of a disorder may not be unique to that disorder but may also be found in other disorders, making accurate diagnosis difficult.

Question 19

What is Co-morbidity?

Answer 19

the extent that two (or more) conditions or diseases occur simultaneously in a patient e.g schizophrenia and depression.

Question 20

What is Reliability?

Answer 20

How consistently clinicians come to the same conclusion using the (test-retest reliability) and agree with each other (inter-rater reliability)

Question 21

What is the dopamine hypothesis?

Answer 21

It claims that an excess of dopamine in certain regions of the brain is associated with positive symptoms of SZ

Question 22

What are neural correlates?

Answer 22

Changes in neuronal events and mechanisms that result in the characteristic symptoms of a behaviour or mental disorder

Question 23

What are cognitive explanations?

Answer 23

They’re explanations of mental disorders that propose that abnormalities in cognitive function are a key component of SZ.

Question 24

What are Dysfunctional thought processing?

Answer 24

Cognitive habits or beliefs that cause the individual to evaluate information inappropriately.

Question 25

What is Family Dysfunction?

Answer 25

The presence of problems within a family that contribute to relapse rates in recovering SZs, including lack of warmth between parents and child, dysfunctional communication patterns and parental overprotection

Question 26

What are Atypical antipsychotics?

Answer 26

they’re a type of antipsychotic that combat positive symptoms, have a beneficial effect on negative symptoms and cognitive impairment and carry a lower risk of extrapyramidal side effects

Question 27

What are typical antipsychotics?

Answer 27

they’re dopamine antagonists in that they bind to but don’t stimulate dopamine receptors and so reduce the symptoms of SZ

Question 28

What is family therapy?

Answer 28

It’s the name given to a range of interventions aimed at the family of someone with a mental disorder.

Question 29

What is token economy?

Answer 29

A form of therapy where desirable behaviours are encouraged by the use of selective reinforcements. Rewards (token) are given as secondary reinforcers when individuals engage in correct/socially desirable behaviours. the tokens can then be exchanged for primary reinforcers - food or privileges.

Question 30

What is the Diathesis - stress model?

Answer 30

It explains mental disorders as the result of interaction between biological (the diathesis) and environmental (stress) influences.

Question 31

what are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 31

1. speech poverty
2. avolition
3. affective flattening
4. anhedonia

Question 32

what is Anhedonia?

Answer 32

a loss of interest and pleasure in all or almost all activities, or a lack of reactivity to normally pleasurable stimuli.

Question 33

what are the genes implicated in schizophrenia?

Answer 33

1. D2
2. AMPA
3. GRK

Question 34

What does the dopamine hypothesis state?

Answer 34

1. Have too many D2 receptors.
   2.D2 receptors too sensitive/ fire too often
2. they produce too much dopamine.
   (Only explains positive symptom

Question 35

What is family dysfunction?

Answer 35

The presence of problems within a family that contribute to relapse rates in recovering schizophrenics, including lack of warmth between parents and child, dysfunctional communication patterns and parental overproctection.

Question 36

What is dysfunctional thought processing?

Answer 36

Cognitive habits or beliefs that cause the individual to evaluate information inappropriately.

Question 37

Describe the key : Tienari et al. (2004)

Answer 37

procedure: Hospitals records were reviewed for nearly 20,000 women admitted to finnish psychiatric hospitals between 1960 and 1979, identifying those who had been diagnosed at least once with SZ or paranoid psychoses.
145 adopted away offspring (the high risk group) was then matched with a sample of 158 adoptees without this genetic risk ( low-risk group). Both groups were independently assessed after a median interval of 12 years, with a follow-up after 21 years

Findings: Of the 303 adoptees, 14 had developed schizophrenia. 11 were from the high risk group, 3 from low risk group

Question 38

Describe the key study of Pharoah et al, (2010)

Answer 38

Procedure: reviewed 53 studies published between 2002 and 2010 to investigate the effectiveness of family intervention. studies chosen were conducted in europe, asia and north america. The studies compared outcomes from family therapy to “standard” care (i.e antipsychotics medication) alone.
Findings:
Mental state: some studies reported an improvement in mental state of patients compared to those receiving standard care.
Compliance with medication: use of FT increase compliance with medication
Social functioning: showed some improvement but didn’t appear to have much of an effect on more concrete outcomes such as living independently or employment
Reduction in relapse and readmission: reduction in the risk of relapse and hospital admission during treatment and 24 months after