Question

What are some of the signs, features, and behaviours associated with schizophrenia?

Have you ever known anyone with schizophrenia? Being as honest as you care to be, does being around someone with this illness create some anxiety or fear for you?

You now know that people who commit certain acts (perhaps violence) may suffer from psychosis, delusions, and hallucinations which is often associated with schizophrenia. How would you explain this phenomenon to your friends and family?

Reviewing some of your classmate's postings, what have you learned about other's who have the first-hand experience of schizophrenia. What are your thoughts about this? Are you surprised about any aspects? What do you know now, that you didn't know before reading about their experiences?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_y-guabRxE Who Gets Me? Schizophrenia (Ontario) Fanshawe College film

Brief in 1200 words

Answer 1

Signs, features, and behaviours associated with schizophrenia:

There are specific clinical criteria that need to be met in order for someone to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. In Diagnostic and statistical Manual( DSM – 5) Schizophrenia is classified as a psychotic disorder. People with schizophrenia have symptoms of psychosis, an abnormal state of consciousness in which the higher functions of the mind are disrupted. In psychosis, some combination of a person's perceptions, thought processes, beliefs, and emotions appear to become disconnected from reality. These symptoms may come and go. Symptoms of schizophrenia are referred to as positive or negative. That doesn't necessarily mean that some are good and some are bad. Positive symptoms are those that are present in someone with schizophrenia that someone without schizophrenia or another mental health condition would not experience.

This includes things like:

• Delusions
• Hallucinations
• Disorganized speech
• Disorganized behaviour

Delusions: Delusions are false beliefs that don’t make sense in the context of a person’s culture. Although everyone has wrong beliefs from time to time, psychotic delusions also have an abnormal obsessive quality. People with psychotic delusions can’t be convinced that their beliefs aren’t real.

Hallucinations: These are false sensory experiences that have no basis in the external world. Psychotic hallucinations occur when the person is fully awake and not under the influence of alcohol or illicit drugs. Auditory hallucinations (hearing voices) and visual hallucinations (seeing things) are the most common, but a person can hallucinate a touch (for example, bugs crawling on the skin), taste, or smell.

Disorganized Speech: Also known as loose association. In psychotically disorganized speech, words are not linked together based on the normal rules of language but are strung together based on sounds, rhyme, puns, or free associations. Although everyone makes speech errors, especially when they’re tired or stressed, psychotically disorganized speech is obviously abnormal and is difficult or impossible to understand.

Disorganized Behavior: Psychotically disorganized behaviors are not goal-directed and don’t make sense in context. For example, taking one’s clothes off to take a bath is sensible. Taking one’s clothes off on a public bus is an example of disorganized behavior. Laughing at inappropriate times or for no reason is a disorganized behavior. Adopting strange postures or freezing are catatonic behaviors.

Negative Symptoms:

In addition to these symptoms that become present in someone with schizophrenia, there are others that are referred to as negative symptoms. This means that the person is experiencing an absence or reduction of certain traits that are often present in healthier individuals. The term negative suggests that something feels as if it is being taken away or disappearing from the person's daily experience. Examples of negative symptoms can include things like:

•        Flattened affect
• Anhedonia
• Reduced speech
• Lack of initiative

Flattened Affect: People with flattened affect appear emotionless or have a very limited range of emotions. They show little response to emotional or disturbing situations or images. This limited expression of emotion can be alarming to others, as it can feel like the person with schizophrenia is disappearing from them.

Anhedonia: Someone with the condition of schizophrenia can demonstrate a lack of joy in things that used to bring them pleasure. This change tends to be quite noticeable by others around them and is not simply a change in interests.

Reduced Speech: A negative symptom of schizophrenia can involve someone speaking noticeably less than they used to. This particular symptom could also be observed as someone speaking less fluently than before.

Lack of Initiative: The loss of will to do things in a negative symptom of schizophrenia. Remember that a negative symptom refers to a characteristic that seems to be lessening or disappearing from the person. Loss of motivation and initiative, also known as avolition, is a common negative symptom.

Cognitive Signs & Symptoms of Schizophrenia:

Cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia are the way a person thinks. Although cognitive symptoms are not used to diagnose schizophrenia, some are common with the condition, such as:

• Difficulty maintaining attention - The inability to maintain focused attention makes people with schizophrenia seem “out of it.”
• Memory problems - Schizophrenia often affects working memory, which is the kind of memory you use to keep things in your head for active processing, like the digits of a phone number you’re about to dial.
• Difficulty planning and structuring activities - Caused by reduced executive control. Executive control is the mental process that allows us to identify the steps needed to complete a task and then execute them in a proper order. Executive control also allows us to suppress our response to distractions in order to get something done.
• Lack of insight - People with schizophrenia have a specific cognitive blind spot that prevents them from understanding that they are ill. This means that loved ones and caregivers should remain as vigilant as possible to help the patient maintain the routines of treatment in order to control symptoms.

I had a relative with schizophrenia and being around someone with this illness does create anxiety or fear.

Living with someone with schizophrenia:

Living with someone who has schizophrenia can be incredibly challenging. One of the best things we can do for our loved one is to learn more about what they are going through. Knowing the ups and downs of schizophrenia can help create a better home environment. Know about hallucinations which mean to see or hear things that others cannot. To have delusions means to accept false beliefs as true. People with schizophrenia may also exhibit loss of interest and drive, speech problems, depression, memory difficulties, and mood swings. Understand what can exacerbate the problems associated with schizophrenia. Exacerbation of symptoms usually occurs when people stop treatment. Learn about how schizophrenia is treated. Although schizophrenia cannot be cured, symptoms usually improve with proper treatment. As many as 50% of patients receiving medical treatment experience significant recovery. It is also important to remember that treatment of schizophrenia requires more than just drugs. When treatment is combined with psychological and psychosocial therapies, patients can recover more quickly. Keeping our expectations realistic also helps. Learn to recognize the early signs of relapse. Paying attention to subtle changes in the behaviour of your relative, including appetite and sleep problems, irritability, loss of interest in daily activities, and a depressed mood. Ensuring that he continues to get treatment after hospitalization. Encouraging him to live a healthy lifestyle that includes a good diet and regular physical activity. Speaking with empathy and compassion in our voice. Learning to adopt ‘constructive disengagement’ wherein lengthy discussions about delusions are avoided. It is very important to not get stressed or angry in the face of their actions, a charged atmosphere can lead to a relapse. Acceptance of them and their situation encourages them to accept themselves and their situation which is key to their voluntary participation in their treatment. Not putting pressure on him to do an activity that he does not want to do. Letting him display a will to do things and then do them at his own pace.