Schizophrenia Flashcards
Psychosis
A state in which a person loses contact with reality in key ways
Schizophrenia
A psychotic disorder in which personal, social, and occupational functioning deteriorate as a result of strange perceptions, unusual emotions, and motor abnormalities
Positive symptoms
Symptoms that seem to be excesses of or bizarre additions to normal thoughts, emotions, or behaviors
Delusion, hallucination, disorganized speech and behavior
Delusion
A strange false belief firmly held despite evidence to the contrary
Grandeur, persecution, reference, control
Formal thought disorder
A disturbance in the production and organization of thought
Loose association
A common thinking disturbance in schizophrenia, characterized by rapid shifts from one topic of conversation to another. Also known as derailment
Inappropriate affect
Display of emotions that are unsuited to the situation
Negative symptoms
Symptoms that seem to be deficits in normal thoughts, behaviors, and emotions
Avolition, Alogia, ahedonia, flat affect
Alogia
A decrease in speech or speech content; also known as poverty of speech
Catatonia
A pattern of extreme psychological motor symptoms found in some forms of schizophrenia which may include catatonic stupor, rigidity, or posturing
Dopamine hypothesis
The theory that schizophrenia results from excessive activity of dopamine
Antipsychotic drugs
Drugs that help correct grossly confused or distorted thinking
Phenothiazine
A group of antihistamine drugs that became the first group of effective antipsychotic medication
Atypical antipsychotic drugs
A relatively new group of antipsychotic drugs whose biological action is different from that of the traditional antipsychotic drugs
Schizophrenogenic mother
A type of mother supposedly cold, domineering, and uninterested in the needs of others who was once thought to cause schizophrenia in her child
Psychotic Disorders
Schizotypal, delusional, brief psychotic, schizophreniform, schizophrenia, schizoaffective
Literal meaning of schizophrenia
Split mind, signifying a break from reality, not multiple personalities
DSM-5 criteria for schizophrenia
Two or more of the following: delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, negative symptoms, disturbance of functioning in one or more major areas
Hallucinations
Perceptual disturbance in which something is seen, heard, or otherwise sensed though it is not actually present
Auditory, visual, tactile, gustatory, olfactory
Disorganized symptoms
Lack of insight, illogical thoughts or speech, pressured speech, derailment, tangentiality, neologisms (made up words), clang, repetition of words or phrase (perseveration), inappropriate affect, object hoarding, catatonia, waxy flexibility
Schizophrenia stats
0.3-0.7% worldwide
2.5 million in the US
Slightly lower in females
20% attempt suicide, 5-6% complete
Development of schizophrenia
Prodromal stage: 1-2 year period when usual behaviors begin to develop
Onset of severe symptoms in very late teens to early-mid 20s
1-2 years of symptoms prior to diagnosis
Genetic influences
Genes are responsible for marking some individuals vulnerable to schizophrenia
Twin studies, adoption studies, family studies, linkage and assoc studies
Endophenotyping
The process of finding certain genes that cause or are related to certain behaviors and symptoms of a disorder
The dopamine hypothesis
Over active dopaminergic system in those with schizophrenia
Likely, but not sole biochemical explanation
Abnormalities in brain structure
Majority show enlarged ventricles
Hypo and hyper frontality, specific deficit in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Prenatal and perinatal factors
Prenatal exposure to influenza, exposure to toxins like marijuana, birth complications
Treatment for Schizophrenia
Antipsychotic medications (only work if taken consistently, may side effects like akinesia, tardive dyskinesia, dry mouth, blurred vision), token economies, multidisciplinary care teams, family intervention
Brief Psychotic Disoder
Presence of delusion, hallucination, disorganized speech/behavior, catatonic behavior which lasts one day but less than one month
Delusional Disorder
Presence of one or more delusions with a duration of one month or longer
Behavior is not obviously odd aside from delusions
Delusional Disorder Specifiers
Erotomanic, grandiose type, jealous type, persecutory, somatic, mixed, unspecified, with bizarre content
Delusional disorder stats
24-30 of 100,000
2-8% of the psychotic disorder
Schizophreniform disorder
Delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, behavior, catatonic behavior present for a one month period
0.2% in a lifetime
Schizoaffective disorder
An uninterrupted period of illness during which there is a major mood episode concurrent with delusions, hallucinations, etc for one month
Combination of schizophrenia and mood disorder
