Schizophrenia Flashcards
Schizophrenia
A number of various psychotic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, restricted or inappropriate affect, and catatonia. Functioning deteriorates as a result of unusual perceptions, odd thoughts, disturbed emotion, and motor abnormalities.
-Treatable brain disorder
-1/100 people
Downward drift theory
Schizophrenia causes sufferers to fall from a higher/lower SES level or to remain poor because they are unable to function effectively
Features of schizophrenia
-Significant financial and emotional costs
-25% attempt suicide and 5% succeed
-Increased risk of physical illness
-more frequent in lower SES groups
-Equally distributed between men and women
-Common onset in teens
Psychosis
A state in which a person loses contact with reality in key ways
Positive symptoms
Excesses in thought, emotion, and behaviour like heightened perceptions and hallucinations
-Delusions
-Inappropriate affect
-Hallucinations
-Disorganized thinking and speech
Delusions
a strange or false belief held despite evidence to the contrary
-Delusions of persecution: someone is out to get you
-Delusions of reference: billboard is talking to you
-Delusions of grandeur: more important than anyone else
-Delusions of control: Someone is trying to control thoughts
What is unique about auditory hallucinations?
Language production areas are activated during an auditory hallucination. Parts of the brain that receive auditory information are not.
-If you put a microphone to the larynx of an individual with an auditory hallucination you can hear low speech
-Use chewing gum to treat
Inappropriate affect
-Behave in a manner that is situationally unsuitable
-May sometimes be an emotional response to other disordered features
Disorganized thinking and speech
-Loose associations or derailment
-Neoligism (newly coined words or expressions)
-Preservations (repeat same phrase over and over)
-clang or rhymes
Negative symptoms
Deficits in thought, emotion and behaviour
-poverty of speech
-restricted affect
-loss of volition
Poverty of speech (alogia)
The reduction in the quantity of speech or speech content, may also say quite a bit but convey little meaning.
Restricted affect
Tend to show less emotion than most people
-Avoidance of eye contact
-Immobile or expressionless face
Loss of volition
Loss of motivation or directedness
-Feeling drained of energy and loss of interest in normal goals
-Inability to start or follow through on a course of action
-Often display ambivalence to most things
Psychomotor symptoms
Unusual movements or gestures, tend to have a private purpose and are purposeful to the individual
-Awkward movements, repeated grimaces, odd gestures
-Catatonia
Catatonia
stupor and rigidity
-10% of people with schizophrenia
Symptom expression in individuals with schizophrenia
Some individuals may be more dominated by either positive or negative symptoms.
-Around half of individuals have significant difficulties with memory, attention, and other kinds of cognitive functioning
3 phases of schizophrenia
- Predromal: the beginning of deterioration, mild symptoms. Lots of misdiagnoses occurs during this period.
- Active: symptoms become apparent, first psychotic break
- Residual: return to predromal-like levels
Each phase may last for days or years.
What constitutes a fuller recovery for sufferers of schizophrenia?
-Good premorbid functioning
-Disorder is triggered by stress
-Disorder has an abrupt onset
-Onset in middle age
-Receive treatment early on
Brief psychotic disorder
various psychotic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, restricted or inappropriate affect, and catatonia for a duration less than 1 month
Schizophreniform disorder
Various psychotic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, restricted or inappropriate affect and catatonia for a duration of 1-6 months
-prevalence of 0.2%
Schizoaffective disorder
Marked symptoms of both schizophrenia and a major depressive episode or a manic episode, schizophrenia with a presented mood disorder for a duration of 6 months or more.
Delusional disorder
Persistent delusions that are not bizarre and not due to schizophrenia for a duration of 1 month or more. Persecutory, jealous, grandiose, and somatic delusions are common
-Prevalence of 10%
Psychotic disorder due to another medical disorder
Hallucinations, delusions, or disorganized speech caused by a medical illness or brain damage with no minimum length.
Substance/medication-induced psychotic disorder
Hallucinations, delusions, or disorganized speech caused directly by a substance
Treatment success in schizophrenia
Treatment varies dramatically for patients, families, caregivers, and communities. Only 40% of people with schizophrenia recieve adequate cate
Antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia treatment
-Antihistamines (phenothiazines): calming affect
-Chlorpromazine (Thorazine): a sharp reduction of symptoms in patients with psychosis.
-Neuroleptic drugs (1st gen): significant side-effects such as weight gain, and sexual dysfunction.
