Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders Flashcards
Historical Context
Kraeplin (1986); described systematically- inappropriate behaviour, stereotypes motor behaviour, hallucinations
First person to conduct follow up studies of MI
Dementia praecox- early onset with deteriorating course & no recovery
Brueler (1926); coined the term schizophrenia
Disagreed that the condition was early onset & always had poor recovery
Schizo=split, phrenia= mind
Loosening of associations in thoughts or between emotions & thoughts
Schizophrenia
Severe & enduring form of psychosis
Impaired insight & reoccuring & ongoing loss of contact with reality
Much variation between individual sufferers
Psychosis
Loss of contact with reality
Disturbances in thought & language, sensory perception, emotion regulation, distortions in perception & reality which are different to those experienced by others around them
May lead to false beliefs & delusions about self & others
Effects of psychosis
Social withdrawal
Preoccupation with personal world
Often difficult to maintain/obtain job
High incidence of homelessness; 11% average, rates higher in women, young people & chronically homeless, just under half not receiving treatment
Liddle’s Tripatrite Model
Looks at which symptoms cluster together & then examine any underlying mechanism that contribute to these symptom clusters
Factor analysis of the signs & symptoms have identified 3 clusters
1) disorganised; speech, behaviour & flat or inappropriate mood
2) positive; hallucinations & delusions
3) negative; absence of activation, apathy, lack of motivation or poverty of speech
Each cluster may have different causes
Positive symptoms
Hallucinations
Delusions
Disorganised speech
Disorganised or catatonic behaviour
Negative symptoms
Flattened affect; lack of response to emotional stimuli
Poverty of speech
Apathy/avolition; lack of energy, lack of ability/interest in normal functioning
Cognitive dysfunction
Alogia; negative thought disorder (poverty of speech content & quality)
Anhedonia; inability to experience pleasure
Asociality; lack of social interaction
Cognitive deficits
Often present before onset of psychotic symptoms
May have developmental role
Poor insight, impaired attentional process & memory deficits
Disorganised symptoms
Disorganised speech
Bizarre behaviour; diverse forms, inappropriate affect
Schneider’s first rank symptoms
Audible thoughts, voices arguing/discussing/commenting, somatic passivity experiences, thought withdrawal, influenced thought, thought broadcasting, delusional perceptions, all other experiences involving volition, impulses & effect
2nd rank symptoms; other disorders of perception, sudden delusional ideas, perplexity, depresssive & euthoric mood changes, feelings of emotional impoverishment
Demographics
0.3-0.7% lifetime prevelance rate Most sufferers 15-35yrs Among top 10 cases of disability worldwide Men & women both affected 24 million sufferers worldwide Most sufferers require lifetime care
Burden of schizophrenia
Life expectancy reduced by 15 yrs
Majority of premature mortality due to CHD
risk; smoking (70%), obesity (leading to diabetes), hypertension
About 1/20 commit suicide, usually near illness onset
Increased risk (10%) of alcohol problem or drug misuse
Burden on families & carers
Widespread stigma
Cost & consequences of schizophrenia
Occupy more beds than any other psychiatric disorder
Rationalisation of resources introduces pressure to discharge patients into the community
Revolving door patients
Reinforcement of the negative stereotype of schizophrenia held by the general public
Course of psychotic illness
Group 1 (22%); 1 episode only- no impairment Group 2 (35%); several episodes with no or minimal impairment Group 3 (8%); impairment after the first episode with subsequent exacerbation & no return to normally Group 4 (35%); impairment increasing with each of several episodes with no return to normality
Delusions overview
Experienced by 75% of those hospitalised due to psychotic symptoms
Firmly held beliefs that usually involve a misinterpretation of perceptions or experiences & become fixed beliefs that are not amendable to change in light of contradictory evidence
Types of delusion
Delusions of persecution
Delusions of grandeur
Delusions of reference; natural environmental event has special meaning
Bizarre delusions; first rank e.g. abduction
Delusional misidentification; imposters
Delusions of guilt or worthlessness
Nihilistic delusions; belief that self, body, part of, other person or world doesn’t exist
Erotomanic delusions; another person, often important or famous, is in love with them
Delusions of control
Thought insertation; have to distinguish from auditory hallucinations
Thought withdrawal: thoughts taken from you
Thought broadcasting; belief that others can here thoughts
Thought block; sudden loss of train of thought
Hallucinations
False sensory experiences
Differentiate between illusions
Auditory hallucinations most common (70% experience it)
Associated with earlier age of onset
Auditory hallucinations
Vary
Running commentary, 1st/2nd person voice, group, discussing individual in critical way
Perceived as external but over time come to have insight of origin
When experienced there is neural activity in brain regions involved in speech generation & sound perception
Reality-monitoring effect; difficulties in distinguishing whether something is real or imagined
Brebion et al (2000)
Schz vs controls
Asked to remember list of self-generated or experimenter generated words
Scz more likely to list false positives
More likely to say that self-generated words were experimenter generated
Motor systems
Catalonia; severe motor abnormalities
Catatonic stupor (freezing in awkward poses)
Excitement (over-activity)
Stereotyped movements (rocking, rubbing)
Waxy flexibility (awkward positions maintained)
Disorganised thinking (speech)
Derailment/tabgeniality; sentence goes off course, unrelated topics
Word salad; unintelligible random mixture of words & phrases
Neologisms; percuiliar combinations of words or a word coined by a psychotic which is meaningless except to the coiner
Clanging/clang associations; words chosen for their sound rather than meaning
Poverty of content of speech; lack of additional, unprompted content seen in normal speech
Schizophrenia spectrum disorders
Spectrum based on a gradient of psychopathology & impairment
4 main disorders; delusional disorders, brief psychotic disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorders
Delusional disorder
One or more delusions lasting at least 1 month
Normal functioning not markedly impaired, behaviour not bizarre
Any manic or depressive episode has been brief in relation to delusional episode
Disorder is not directly attributable to use of substance or medication