Question

Aheed’s roommates brought him to the emergency room because he started behaving oddly. Specifically, they reported that he was collecting litter from campus in his room, he did not seem to notice when they spoke directly to him, and they do not remember the last time they saw him sleep or eat. One roommate remembered Aheed once mentioned an uncle who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctors thanked the roommates and said they would consider that diagnosis after they ruled out rival hypotheses. Is it appropriate for the doctors to consider another diagnosis given the information they have? What hypotheses might they be looking to rule out before confirming any diagnosis?

Answer 1

There are other disorders that show similar symptoms like schizophrenia., for example, anxiety shows symptoms such as fear, and uneasiness, sleep problems, shortness of breath, a person can suffer from hallucinations due to Intense negative emotions, stress or grief depression, or medications may trigger hallucination symptoms.

In the case of schizophrenia, there is one percent of the total population that suffers from schizophrenia in the US, there, the number of men are more than women. It can affect both adolescent and adults.

The symptoms are very much similar to anxiety or other mental disorders that are caused by stress or depression, and the person shows social withdrawal, suspiciousness, hostility, deterioration of personal hygiene, expressionless gaze, will oversleep or suffer from insomnia, unable to concentrate, inappropriate laughter or crying, hallucination that is seeing or hearing things that are not there or develop the delusion that is believing things that are not true.

The exact cause of schizophrenia is still known but is believed to be triggered by a combination of physical, genetic, psychological and environmental factors.

Aheed's friends had given the information to the doctor that he was collecting litter from campus in his room, he gave blank and expressionless gaze, and he was suffering from insomnia, as they did not remember when did they last see him sleeping, and they had not seen him eating as well. The other important information they gave was that Aheed had mentioned that his uncle was suffering from schizophrenia.

Yes, it is important for the physician to rule out any other disorder before declaring him as suffering from schizophrenia because sleeplessness can also cause symptoms that correlate with symptoms of schizophrenia, the sleeplessness can be due to stress or depression that are curable, the genetic factor is also important to see whether it is only his uncle or any other family members also are suffering from schizophrenia.

To rule out other possibilities a thorough check-up and pathological test have to be done, to see if there is any other factor in the brain, or anywhere in the body, that had caused sleeplessness, but his friends never said that he complained about hallucination or delusion, but he showed the deterioration of personal hygiene.

His some of the symptoms are typically shown by the person suffering from schizophrenia, and some symptoms are showing symptoms of stress or anxiety unless it is clinically proved the physician does not want to put him on the medication of schizophrenia.