Schizophrenia

Question 1

what is psychosis?

Answer 1

massive disturbance in someone’s thought = losing touch with reality

Question 2

schizophrenia

Answer 2

SSO: suggests it is a disease of the brain (somatic problem) , psychotic disorder, loss of contact with reality, hard to distinguish what is real & what isn’t
WHO: severe mental disorder characterized by profound disturbances in thinking, affecting language, perception & sense of self

Question 3

positive symptoms

Answer 3

things you would not normally expect to see

short, non-permanent, come and go like episodes

Question 4

types of positive symptoms

Answer 4

hallucinations: false sensory experiences, can be auditory, uncomfortable
delusions: fixed false beliefs that a person holds, even when proved impossible, unclear, fragmented, disconnected
types: control, grandiosity, paranoia, jealousy, erotomania, reference, nihilism, somatic

Question 5

negative symptoms

Answer 5

things that would normally be present, but aren’t
long lasting, can be permanent
chronic emotional disturbances

Question 6

types of negative symptoms

Answer 6

blunted affect: non-expressive

anhedonia: inability to experience pleasure
avolition: lack of motivation
alogia: severely reduced speech

Question 7

cognitive/disorganized symptoms

Answer 7

trouble with attention and memory
disorganized speech: hard to express themselves
- derailment = shifting topics
- tangentially = irrelevant responses
- preservation = using the same words repeatedly (word salads)

Question 8

classification of schizophrenia

Answer 8

no way to confirm diagnosis
Hare - new disease from changes in society
Kraeplin - what if these are all these diseases are actually just symptoms?
Bleuler - negative symptoms are more important

Question 9

DSM IV to 5

Answer 9

elimination of subtitles
reliable not valid
must have at least 1 positive symptom

Question 10

schizoaffective disorder

Answer 10

positive symptoms of schizophrenia + mood disturbances

misdiagnosis b/w schizo, BD & depression

Question 11

schizophrenia epidemiology

Answer 11

men and women equally diagnosed

outcome in developing countries much better than those in less developed countries

Question 12

schizophrenia epidemiology - genetic evidence of schizophrenia

Answer 12

average risk of development
- general pop: 1%
- spouses of people w/ it: 2%
- children of one parent w/ it: 7-15%
- offspring of two parents w/ it: 27-47%
- monozygotic twins: 48-50%
some combinations of genes suspected but research is unclear & inconsistent = unable to genetically predict schizophrenia

Question 13

schizophrenia epidemiology- biological/somatic factors

Answer 13

viral infections
birth complications
neuropathology
neurodevelopmental pr generative? 
 - cannot detect by looking at MRI
the dopamine hypothesis
- symptoms are a product of specific problems of dopamine activity  (meds = decrease in dopamine)

Question 14

schizophrenia epidemiology - social factors

Answer 14

the social causation theory: person’s schizophrenia is caused buy the social environment they live in
the social drift hypothesis: a person who has it will drift down the social ladder = lose job, live in bad environment etc.
both?