Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The Four Primary Symptom Domains in Schizophrenia

                      A) Positive Symptoms - Hallucination, Delusional Thinking, Thought Disorders, Motor Agitation.
                 
                  Delusions: erroneous beliefs that usually involve a misinterpretation of perceptions with content including a variety of themes(persecutory, somatic, religious, or grandiose).

                  Hallucinations: can occur in any sensory modality(auditory, visual, smell, taste, and tactile).

                  Disorganized Thinking: irrational thought process manifested by loose association, tangential thinking and word salad.

                  Disorganized Behavior: can be manifested in many different ways from childlike silliness to unpredictable agitation(dress in unusual manner, layers of coats on hot days, shouting in public).


                  B) Negative Symptoms - Social withdrawal, blunted affect, passive behavior, impoverished thinking.

                  Flat Affect: Face appears immobile and unresponsive, poor eye contact and reduced body language. Range of emotional expressiveness is clearly diminished most of the time.

                  Alogia: (poverty of speech) manifested by brief empty replies

                  Avolition: characterized by an inability to initiate and persist in goal directed activities. The person may sit for long periods of time and show litlle interest in participating in work or social activities.


                  C) Cognitive Disfunctions - Decreased attention span, impaired memory, poor executive functioning.


                  D) Mood Symptoms - Mood Swings, mania, depressed mood. If this is severe the person may be diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder.

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