Schizophrenia Symptoms and Types PDF

11/27/23, 3:40 AM Realizeit for Student Introduction Schizophrenia causes distorted and bizarre thoughts, perceptions, emotions, movements, and behavior. It cannot be defined as a single illness; rather, schizophrenia is thought of as a syndrome or as a disease process with many different varietie...

11/27/23, 3:40 AM Realizeit for Student Introduction Schizophrenia causes distorted and bizarre thoughts, perceptions, emotions, movements, and behavior. It cannot be defined as a single illness; rather, schizophrenia is thought of as a syndrome or as a disease process with many different varieties and symptoms, much like the varieties of cancer. For decades, the public vastly misunderstood schizophrenia, fearing it as dangerous and uncontrollable and causing wild disturbances and violent outbursts. Many people believed that those with schizophrenia needed to be locked away from society and institutionalized. Only recently has the mental health community come to learn and educate the community at large that schizophrenia has many different symptoms and presentations and is an illness that medication can control. Thanks to the increased effectiveness of newer atypical antipsychotic drugs and advances in community-based treatment, many clients with schizophrenia live successfully in the community. Clients whose illness is medically supervised and whose treatment is maintained often continue to live and sometimes work in the community with family and outside support. Schizophrenia is usually diagnosed in late adolescence or early adulthood. Rarely does it manifest in childhood. The peak incidence of onset is 15 to 25 years of age for men and 25 to 35 years of age for women. The prevalence of schizophrenia is estimated at about 1% of the total population. In the United States, this translates to nearly 3 million people who are, have been, or will be affected by the disease. The incidence and the lifetime prevalence are roughly the same throughout the world (Jablensky, 2017). The symptoms of schizophrenia are divided into two major categories: positive or hard symptoms/signs, which include delusions, hallucinations, and grossly disorganized thinking, speech, and behavior, and negative or soft symptoms/signs, which include flat affect, lack of volition, and social withdrawal or discomfort. Box 16.1 describes these symptoms more fully. BOX 16.1 Positive and Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia Positive or Hard Symptoms Ambivalence: Holding seemingly contradictory beliefs or feelings about the same person, event, or situation Associative looseness: Fragmented or poorly related thoughts and ideas Delusions: Fixed false beliefs that have no basis in reality Echopraxia: Imitation of the movements and gestures of another person whom the client is observing https://herzing.realizeithome.com/RealizeitApp/Student.aspx?Token=0Dn26kXyU%2f6F5gOCz4%2f2IVD5YOX6GjyN8BXsE5kBD64UN3Harx67qLkpTVXS1upt… 1/3 11/27/23, 3:40 AM Realizeit for Student Flight of ideas: Continuous flow of verbalization in which the person jumps rapidly from one topic to another Hallucinations: False sensory perceptions or perceptual experiences that do not exist in reality Ideas of reference: False impressions that external events have special meaning for the person Perseveration: Persistent adherence to a single idea or topic; verbal repetition of a sentence, word, or phrase; resisting attempts to change the topic Bizarre behavior: Outlandish appearance or clothing; repetitive or stereotyped, seemingly purposeless movements; unusual social or sexual behavior Negative or Soft Symptoms Alogia: Tendency to speak little or to convey little substance of meaning (poverty of content) Anhedonia: Feeling no joy or pleasure from life or any activities or relationships Apathy: Feelings of indifference toward people, activities, and events Asociality: Social withdrawal, few or no relationships, lack of closeness Blunted affect: Restricted range of emotional feeling, tone, or mood Catatonia: Psychologically induced immobility occasionally marked by periods of agitation or excitement; the client seems motionless, as if in a trance Flat affect: Absence of any facial expression that would indicate emotions or mood Avolition or lack of volition: Absence of will, ambition, or drive to take action or accomplish tasks Inattention: Inability to concentrate or focus on a topic or activity, regardless of its importance Adapted from Lewis, S. F., Escalona, R., & Keith, S. S. (2017). Phenomenology of schizophrenia. In B. J. Sadock, V. A. Sadock, & P. Ruiz (Eds.), Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry (Vol. 1, 10th ed., pp. 1406–1425). Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott. Medication may control the positive symptoms, but frequently, the negative symptoms persist after positive symptoms have abated. The persistence of these negative symptoms over time presents a major barrier to recovery and improved functioning in the client’s daily life. https://herzing.realizeithome.com/RealizeitApp/Student.aspx?Token=0Dn26kXyU%2f6F5gOCz4%2f2IVD5YOX6GjyN8BXsE5kBD64UN3Harx67qLkpTVXS1upt… 2/3 11/27/23, 3:40 AM Realizeit for Student Schizoaffective disorder is diagnosed when the client is severely ill and has a mixture of psychotic and mood symptoms. The signs and symptoms include those of both schizophrenia and a mood disorder such as depression or bipolar disorder. The symptoms may occur simultaneously or may alternate between psychotic and mood disorder symptoms. Some studies report that long-term outcomes for the bipolar type of schizoaffective disorder are similar to those for bipolar disorder, while outcomes for the depressed type of schizoaffective disorder are similar to those for schizophrenia. Treatment for schizoaffective disorder targets both psychotic and mood symptoms. Often, second-generation antipsychotics are the best first choice for treatment. Mood stabilizers or an antidepressant may be added if needed (Mojtabai, Fochtmann, & Bromert, 2017). https://herzing.realizeithome.com/RealizeitApp/Student.aspx?Token=0Dn26kXyU%2f6F5gOCz4%2f2IVD5YOX6GjyN8BXsE5kBD64UN3Harx67qLkpTVXS1upt… 3/3