schizophrenia

Question 1

how is schizophrenia characterized

Answer 1

distrubances across many aspects of a persons thoughts feelings experinces and behvaiour

Question 2

what are the positive symptoms of schizophrenia

Answer 2

1. presistant deluison
2. persistant halluciantions
3. thought disorder
4. experinces of influence, passivity or control

Question 3

what is presistant delusion?

Answer 3

beleifs that an individual holds that is not based on reality eg: falsely believing that someone is trying to harm you

Question 4

what is presistant hallucinations?

Answer 4

sensory experinces most commonly auditory or visual

Question 5

what is thought disorder?

Answer 5

the inability to think and therefor speak in an organied manner

Question 6

what is experinces of influence?

Answer 6

the beleif that your thoughts or actioned are influneced or controlled by soemone or something external

Question 7

what are the negative symptoms of schizophrenia?

Answer 7

1. avoliation
2. flattened affect
3. impaired cognitive function
4. catatonia

Question 8

what is avoiltaion?

Answer 8

lack of motivation

Question 9

what is flattened effect ?

Answer 9

blunt emotinal expression

Question 10

what is impaired cognitive function?

Answer 10

reduced memory or attention

Question 11

what is catatonia ?

Answer 11

lack of movement or speech

Question 12

what is potitive symptoms?

Answer 12

an experince that is in addition to or a distortion of a normal experience

Question 13

what is negative symptoms?

Answer 13

this occurs when level of functioning or experince falls below normal levels

Question 14

explain ANEJA ET AL.

Answer 14

• a boy began to show decline in acamdeeic studies and general behvaiour at age of 10
• his parents got divorced
• he moved in with his gradparents
• he changed schools
• from age 12 he ebgan hearing voices
• he believed his mother and other people were communicating with the voices
• his behavaior became more eratic
• his level of self care declined dramatically
• he was admitted to the hospital and was given range of medication
• boy was diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia
• he still suffered from negative symptoms

Question 15

what are the types of delusions and explain them

Answer 15

1. persecutry delusion = a strongly helf belief that you are in danger and that you are being conspired against
2. grandiose delusion = a strongly helf belief that you are soemone with special abilities or special powers
3. delusion of reference = a strongly helf belief that events in the environemt are related to you

Question 16

explain the main theories from freeman.

Answer 16

presecutry ideation is the beleif that people are being hostile towards you and is one of the many common symptoms of schizophrenia

Question 17

what is the aim of freeman et al

Answer 17

aim was to investigate weather particpants without a hisotry of mental illness have thoughts of presecutary nature in virtual reailty

Question 18

what was the sample of freeman

Answer 18

12 female 12 male
all students or adminstrative staff
from UCL
no hisotry of mental illness
voulnteer sampling

Question 19

what was the procedure ?

Answer 19

-a lab experiment
- p. were trained to use vr
- enter virtual environment for 5 min
- told try to form impressions of avatars
- 5 avatars ( 3 sat at 1 desk and 2 sat at another desk )
- avatars showed ambiguous behaviours
- given questionnaire after finished
- given BSI ( 53 itmes ) self report measure assesses 9 symptoms
- symptoms included interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility.
- given questions about paranoia
- questions included closed questions where participants gave their answer on numerical questionnaire
- semi structured interview on thoughts and feelings on vr experience

Question 20

results of freeman

Answer 20

• particpants had a positive opinion on avatars
• for the item ‘’ they were talking about me behindg my back ‘’ 11 particpants did not agree at all 9 agreed a little 3 agreed modetaly and 2 agreed totally
• higher levels of interpersonal sensitiivty and higher levels of anxiety were significally correlated with higher levels of persecutry thoughts

Question 21

biological explinations ( genetic )

Answer 21

Gottseman found that likelihood of developing schizophrenia went from 1% in the general population to up to 48% if you have an identical twin with schizophrenia

Identical twins share their entire DNA whereas non-identical only share around 50% of their DNA concordance of schizophrenia is higher and monozygotic Hilker et al. carried out twin study with over 30,000 twin pairs in Denmark using two national registers 1. danish twin register 2. psychiatric Central research register poker concluded that the heritability of schizophrenia was 79%

Adoption studies allow us to separate the influence of genetics and influence of environment tienari et al. Clown schizophrenia, and 6.7 of adults with biological mother with schizophrenia compared to 4% of a group..

Question 22

biological explination ( biochemical )

Answer 22

The dopamine hypothesis states that the brains of people with schizophrenia produce more dopamine than the brain of people without schizophrenia

dopamine is a neurotransmitter meaning it is a chemical substance which allows communication between two neurons, this allow the nerve impulse to pass between two cells. The neurotransmitter moves across a small junction known as a synapse,

dopamine hypothesis identifies a link between excessive amount of dopamine and positive symptoms of schizophrenia research suggest that neurons that use transmitter dopamine either fire too often or send too much information excess of dopamine

particular brain regions can be related to certain symptoms

drugs that increase the level of dopamine in the brain include cocaine. Large increases and dopamine productions are correlated with an increase in reporting of hallucinations

Parkinson’s disease is often treated with a synthetic form of dopamine called L dopa if the dosage is too high, it creates symptoms and individuals identical to schizophrenia,

postmortem studies and brain scans help us understand. The neurochemistry involved. Postmortem studies have found that the brains of dead individuals with schizophrenia have a large number of dopamine receptors and had abnormally low level of enzymes.

PET scan measures the amount of dopamine activity in the brain increase in dopamine receptors in the striatum system and cortex of the brain had schizophrenia which led to positive symptoms decrease dopamine activity in the prefrontal cortex of patients with schizophrenia had negative symptoms

Question 23

cognitive explination

Answer 23

frith describes schizophrenia as an abnormality of self monitoring,

this occurs when patients fail to recognize that their perceived hallucinations are in fact just inner speech, they attribute what they are hearing to someone else

he tested this idea with patience with schizophrenia he ask them to decide whether items that have been read out loud were done by themselves an experiment or a computer patient with schizophrenia performed worst at the task.

Another major positive symptom delusional, thinking may arise mis interpretation of perception. Those experiencing delusions may apply logical reasoning to their hallucinations, thought that our self generated appears to be an external source and become incorporated in the individual set of beliefs

FRITH suggests those experiencing negative symptoms have difficulty generating spontaneous action. This means they might find it difficult to make decisions on how to behave or what to do with some sort of prompt from someone.

Question 24

biological treatment

Answer 24

during the 1950s antipsychotic word developed which work by reducing the activity of dopamine and as a result reducing symptoms,

typical antipsychotics also referred to as first generation was developed in the 1950s an example is chlorpromazine they work by reducing the effects of dopamine, and therefore reducing the positive symptoms of schizophrenia

they blockdopamine receptors so there’s that less dopamine activity

there are undesirable side effects

atypical antipsychotic were developed in the 1990s example is clozapine

atypical antipsychotics have a lower risk of side effects. They have a beneficial effect on negative symptoms as well as positive symptoms atypical antipsychotics work by blocking dopamine and they rapidly dissociate. The rapid dissociation allows for normal transmission to take place which leads to less side effects

randomized control trials consistently show that around 50% of those staking antipsychotic medication shows significant improvement in their condition after 4 to 6weeks.

Relapse rates, using antipsychotics can be quite high. They are directed to keep taking medication even in periods of remission

The side effects can result in non-adherence to medication side effects can be severe for example EPS and TD

Question 25

ECT

Answer 25

ECT is another biological treatment which has been applied to alleviate symptoms of schizophrenia.

ECT is more refined version than the traditional method.

It involves passing electricity through the brain with the intention of inducing a seizure, seizure is the treatment rather than the electricity.

Patient usually undergo course of ECT treatments ranging from 6 to 12 sessions, it is typically given twice a week during treatment period

instead of applying ECT bilaterally it is now applied unilaterally to the non-dominant hemisphere only to reduce memory loss.

There are still significant risks involved to the individual the procedure can affect the central nervous system and cardiovascular system

memory loss is still a common side effect of ECT, one theory is that it affect post synaptic responses to central nervous system transmitters

Question 26

cbt

Answer 26

cognitive behavioral therapy is an approach to the treatment of mental health disorders. CBT is a talking therapy designed to help people change through recognizing and challenging the thoughts that underline their behaviors.

Question 27

sensky

Answer 27

carried out randomize control trial to compare the effectiveness of CBT with the control group who engaged in befriending

befriending sessions included in informal one-to-one discussions about hobbies and current affairs.

This compares was used to test whether CBT itself is effective.

The sample included 90 participants with the diagnosis of treatment, resistant schizophrenia ,

patient received average of 19 sessions of CBT or befriending over the treatment.

Each intervention was delivered by two nurses.

The CBT treatment followed distinct stages, including engaging with the patient and discussing the emergence of disorder

assessed by blind raters before the start of the treatment, treatment completion and a nine month follow up was done to check symptoms.

They use the CPRS and SANS to measure and assess

results show that immediately following the treatment. Both groups showed a significant overall reduction in both positive positive and negative symptoms of schizophreniaat

the follow-up stage nine months later, improvement in symptoms remained in those in the CBT condition, but was no longer evident in the befriending condition