Schizophrenia and Related Disorders

psychosis

• when someone is not in touch with actual reality (not able to perceive things going on around them)

• commonly in hallucinations (false sensory perceptions) and/or delusions (false beliefs)

• not limited to schizophrenia (drug-induced, brain injury, sleep deprivation)

brief psychotic disorder

someone experiences psychotic features while experiencing stress

• lasts less than 1 month

schizophreniform disorder

symptoms are the same as shizophrenia but lasts only 1 to 6 months

schizoaffective disorder

person with symptoms of both schizophrenia and a major depressive disorder episode or a manic episode

schizophrenia checklist

• for 1 month, individual displays two or more of the following symptoms most of the time:

  • delusions

  • hallucinations

  • disorganized speech

  • very abnormal motor activity, including catatonia

  • negative symptoms

• at least one of the individual’s symptoms must be one of the first three

• must be treated with medication

financial and emotional costs

• high percent of people attempt suicide (hallucinations may tell them to)

• more at risk because of how limited treatment options are

• low quality of life, like poverty → symptoms are brought on by stress

  • downward drift theory → symptoms impact them so severely they are unable to work or go to school. drops down in economic status

positive symptoms

things being “added” to the person

• delusions

• disorganized thinking and speech

• heightened perceptions and hallucinations

• inappropriate affect

delusions

false beliefs

common types:

• persecution → someone is out to get them; used to be “paranoid schizophrenia”

• reference → gives meaning to things without meaning; being given “signs”

• grandeur → thinks they are very important, can believe they are reincarnated 

• control → being controlled by others, their actions emotions, beliefs, actions, etc

disorganized thinking and speech

• tends to be one of the first symptoms of schizophrenia

• loose associations or derailment → responds to singular words or ideas and not the whole statement

• neologisms → makes up a word that makes sense to them but is nonsense

• perseveration → repetition without reason

• clang or rhymes

heightened perceptions and hallucinations

• problems of perception and attention

• perceptions in the absence of external stimuli may occur together and/or involve other sense

inappropriate affect

• situationally unsuitable

• may sometimes be an emotional response to other disorder features

negative symptoms

• poverty of speech (alogia)

  • reduction of quantity of speech or speech content

  • may say quite a bit but convey little meaning

• restricted affect

  • show less emotion than most people

avolition and social withdraw

loss of volition (avolition)

• feeling drained of energy and interest in normal goals

• inability to start or follow through on a course of action

• ambivalence: conflicted feelings about most things

social withdraw

• withdrawal from social environment and attention only to own ideas and fantasies

• leads to social skill breakdown

course of schizophreia

usually first appears between the late teens and mid-thirties

• three phases (may last for days or years)

  • prodromal: beginning of deterioration; mild symptoms

  • active: symptoms become apparent

  • residual: return to prodromal-like levels

recovery

fuller recovery more likely in people:

• with good premorbid functioning

• whose disorder was triggered by stress

• with abrupt onset

• with later onset

• who receive early treatment

relapses are apparently more likely during times of lfie stress

biological views

inheritance and brain activity play key roles in development of schizophrenia

• general population: 1%

• second-degree relatives: 3%

• first-degree relatives: 10%

• twins: 48%

dopamine-hypothesis

dopamine transmitted too often or easily;