schizophrenia - symptoms & features

Question 1

what is meant by features?

Answer 1

• usually involve statistics about disorders, or aspects of it such as how the illness develops or how other others such as gender and age link

Question 2

what is meant by symptoms?

Answer 2

• what characterise the disorder about how the person thinks, feels or behaves

Question 3

what is a phychotic disorder characterised by?

Answer 3

• unlike neurosis (the mental health issues separate person from reality), a psychotic disorder is characterised by major disturbances in thought, emotion and behaviour

Question 4

what are some features of schizophrenia?

Answer 4

• affects 1% of the population
• equally common in males and females, onset age is later in females. men are usually 16-25 and for females about 10 years later
• severity is greater in males compared to females
• tends to be diagnosed in adolescence but can be diagnosed at any age up to around 30 years old

Question 5

what are symptoms in schizophrenia?

Answer 5

• can be positive or negative
• positive symptoms: additions to behaviour - tend to be more treatable than negative symptoms
• negative symptoms: where normal functioning is not present

Question 6

what are positive symptoms also known as?

Answer 6

• type I/first-rank symptoms

Question 7

what is meant by hallucinations?

Answer 7

• where the patient hears or sees things that do not exist, e.g. voices commenting on other behaviour
• positive

Question 8

what is meant by delusions?

Answer 8

• such as delusions of control, where patient thinks their actions are being controlled by outside forces
• positive

Question 9

what is meant by thought insertion?

Answer 9

• where patient thinks that the thoughts in their head are put there by someone else
• positive

Question 10

what is meant by thought withdrawal?

Answer 10

• belief that outside forces are taking thoughts from the mind
• positive

Question 11

what is meant by thought broadcasting?

Answer 11

• where patient believes their thoughts are being broadcast to others
• positive

Question 12

what is meant by disorganised thinking?

Answer 12

• individuals cannot organise their thoughts about a situation, leading to confusion in what to do or say
• find it hard to think in an ordered and logical way to make thoughts make sense
• positive

Question 13

what are negative thoughts also known as?

Answer 13

• type II/second-rank symptoms

Question 14

what is meant by poverty of speech?

Answer 14

• where patient uses as few words as possible
• negative

Question 15

what is meant by social withdrawal?

Answer 15

• where patient no longer interact with family and friends
• negative

Question 16

what is meant by flattening affect?

Answer 16

• where patient has a lack of expression in their voice and does not show emotions on their face
• negative

Question 17

what is meant by disorganised speech?

Answer 17

• any interruption that makes communication difficult - sometimes impossible to understand
• positive

Question 18

what is meant by disorganised behaviour?

Answer 18

• behaviour that is self-contradictory/inconsistent
• e.g. childlike silliness/extreme emotional reaction (laughing after a catastrophe)
• positive

Question 19

what is meant by grandiose delusions?

Answer 19

• unfounded/inaccurate beliefs that one has special powers, wealth, mission/identity
• positive

Question 20

what is meant by persecutory delusions?

Answer 20

• belief that someone or something is mistreating, spying on or attempting to harm them (or someone close to them)
• positive

Question 21

what is meant by referential delusions?

Answer 21

• delusion is which the patient belies that unsuspicious occurrences refer to them in person

Question 22

what is prevalence and onset?

Answer 22

• likelihood of a person developing schizophrenia is between 0.3% and 0.7% depending on factors such as their racial/ethnic background, where they live and the country of their birth
• gender differences are also apparent - males are more likely to develop more negative symptoms and have longer duration of the disorder
• peak onset is early twenties for males and late twenties for females
• patients who show psychotic episodes earlier than in late adolescence appear to be more likely to have worse prognosis over the long term

Question 23

what is meant by prodromal?

Answer 23

• period is the early period in schizophrenia before the onset of psychotic symptoms.
• during this time the patients still have insight and have not yet experienced a psychotic break with reality

Question 24

how is a person diagnosed with schizophrenia?

Answer 24

• requires two or more positive symptoms
• for a period of at least a month
• can only be done by a psychiatrist using a classification system such as DSM or ICD
• yet there is no physical way to diagnose

Question 25

how can schizophrenia be diagnosed physically?

Answer 25

• blood testing
• eye tracking

Question 26

how can blood testing be used to diagnose schizophrenia?

Answer 26

• investigating as to whether it is possible that a blood test may become possible as a way of diagnosing the disorder
• Perkins and others (2014 article in Schizophrenia Bulletin) analysed blood samples of 32 symptoms with symptoms that seemed to show psychosis and from 35 control patients
• found that they were able to predict which of the 32 patients went onto develop psychosis, using biomarkers of inflammation, oxidative stress, metabolism and hormones (which have been previously linked to be at abnormal levels in patients with schizophrenia)

Question 27

how can eye tracking be used to diagnose schizophrenia?

Answer 27

• Sweeny et al 1994 carried out research using psychotic patients and matched controls
• found that those with schizophrenia were slow and different in their eye movements

Question 28

what is meant by prognosis?

Answer 28

• ’Rule of the thirds’ (rule of thumb):
• 1/3 remove more or less completely
• 1/3 episodic impairment (repeated episodes of schizophrenia)
• 1/3 chronic decline (untreatable)
• with treatment about 20% of patients diagnosed will respond well to the treatment.
• a large percentage will remain chronically ill, requiring regular treatment and interventions in order to support them
• doctors have not found a way to accurately predict what an individual’s prognosis will be after diagnosis

Question 29

what is meant by comorbidity?

Answer 29

• simultaneous presence of two or more diseases/medical conditions in patient

Question 30

what is meant by catatonia?

Answer 30

• abnormality of movement and behaviour arising from a disturbed mental state

Question 31

what is meant by avolition?

Answer 31

• lack of interest/engagement in goal-directed behaviour