Symptoms Flashcards
Who does schizophrenia affect?
1% of the worlds population - universal, across cultures
Has it been around long?
Ancient writings indicate it has been around for thousands of years - but still don’t understand the disorder very well and what is causing it
Why is it problematic?
Monetary cost - costs the nation a lot of people, exceeds the cost of all cancers because people deteriorate and cannot look after themselves, make up the vast majority of homeless people
What does the term refer too?
Bleuler - break with reality
What are the types of symptoms?
Positive
Negative
Cognitive
When do the symptoms appear?
Gradually, over 3-5 years
Which symptoms appear first?
Negative are there from the beginning
followed by cognitive (deterioration of IQ)
positive symptoms appear several years later
Why are positive symptoms positive?
Because they make themselves known by their presence - ontop of normal development
What do positive symptoms include?
Thought disorders
Hallucinations
Dellusions
What are thought disorders?
Disoranigsed, irrational thinking - most important
Difficulty arranging their thoughts logically and sorting out pleadable conclusions
Jump from topic to topic in conversations - make associations when they aren’t relevant
Utter meaningless words or choose words for rhyme rather than meaning
What are hallucinations?
Perceptions of stimuli which are not present
most commoner auditory - typically, voices talk to person, ordering to do something or scold person for his or her unworthiness or utter meaningless phrases
Olfactory hallucinations are common - contribute to the delusion that others are trying to kill them
What are delusions?
Beliefs which are contrary to fact. 3 categories
of persecution - beliefs that others are plotting and conspiring against oneself
of grandeur - false beliefs about ones power and importance (godlike power, special knowledge)
of control - related to persecution, believes they are being controlled by others through radar or a radio receiver implanted in brain
Why are negative symptoms negative?
Known by the absence of diminution of normal behaviours
What are the negative symptoms?
Flattened emotional response social withdrawal poverty of speech lack of initiative and persistence anhedonia - without hendonics (pleasure)
What are the cognitive symptoms?
Difficulty sustaining attention - affects everything else
low psychomotor speed - ability to rapidly and fluently perform movements of fingers, hands and legs
deficits in learning and memory
poor abstract thinking
poor problem solving
