Characteristics of SZ

• Positive symptoms

  -Any change in behaviour or thoughts, these.appear to reflect an excess or distortion of normal function

  -Includes:

  • Hallucinations
  • Delusions
  • Catatonic behaviour
• + Hallucinations

  • Sensory perceptions that aren't real
  • Most common = auditory hallucinations e.g. hearing voice, sounds that aren't there
  • Visual- seeing lights, faces, objects that aren't there
  • Tactile- feeling sensations that event real e.g. someone/thing touch your skin
  • Olfactory- smelling things that aren't there
• + Delusions

  • A belief that isnt real yet help with complete conviction, even though its based on a mistaken, strange or unrealistic view
  • Some develop a delusion to explain their hallucination

  e.g. if they heard voices describing three actions, they may believe someone is controlling their actions

  • Most common are persecution- may believe there being chased, followed
  • Or grandiosity - may believe they are powerful, have superior knowledge
  • Delusions may involve ' experiences of control '

  -e.g. person. may believe they're on TV are communicating messages to them
• +/- Catatonic behaviour

  • Involves concerns with movement
  • Can have from fast repetitive or bizarre movements (+)
  • Can have little to no movement, sometimes immobile for long periods (-)
  • Demonstrate bizarre postures & facial contortions (-)

  e.g. moving with no discernible purpose such as energetic pacing, or wandering in circles
• Negative symptoms

  -Reflect a withdrawal or lack of function that you would not usually expect to see in a healthy person

  -Includes

  • Alogia
  • Avolition
  • Flattness of affect
  • Catotonic behaviour
• (-) Alogoia

  • Known as poverty of speech
  • Characterised by a decrease in speech fluency & productivity
  • Thought to be a result of slowed or blocked thoughts
• Avolition

  • The reduction, or inability to initiate goal directed behaviour
  • For example, person may seem indifferent with goings on their surroundings, showing neither the will nor desire to take part

  e.g. sitting in the house for hours on end, doing nothing
• (-) Flatness of affect

  • Also known as flattened emotion
  • Characterised as a reduction in the range & intensity of emotional expression
  • Including facial expression, voice tone, eye contact & body language

  e.g. there person doesn't emit the same signals of emotion when in a group- they don't laugh when a person tells a Koke, or speech patterns are very monotonous
• • Schizophrenic may experience disorganised symptoms
  • can be disorganised thoughts - jump from one topic to another in an illogical manner
  • Can be disorganised speech - speech may be muddled or incoherent or may be confused or intelligible mixture of seemingly random words & phrases sometimes referred to as ' word salad '
• Diagnostic criteria

  • ICD-10
  • Normal requirement of SZ is that a minimum of one very clear symptom or two or more if less clear
  • Belonging to any one of the groups in list 1
  • Or at least symptoms from 2 of the groups in list 2
  • Symptoms should have been clearly present for most of the time during a period of 1 month or +