Cognitive symptoms involve problems with attention and memory, especially in planning and organizing to achieve a goal. Cognitive deficits are the most disabling for patients trying to lead a normal life.
Auditory hallucinations, “hearing voices,” are the most common in schizophrenia and related disorders. Disorganized thinking and speech refer to thoughts and speech that are jumbled and/or do not make sense.
Auditory hallucinations are among the most disturbing of paranoid schizophrenia symptoms, often manifesting as voices that belittle or ridicule the schizophrenia sufferer while urging them to do unspeakable things.
Social withdrawal (48%), emotional withdrawal (42%), and poor rapport (39%) were among the most common symptoms, and 19% of patients had all 5 negative symptoms.
The active phase (sometimes called “acute”), can be the most alarming to friends and family. It causes symptoms of psychosis like delusions, hallucinations, and jumbled speech and thoughts.
Factors for poor prognosis
Early-onset of illness. Male. Strong negative symptoms. Family history of schizophrenia.
The symptoms of schizophrenia are usually classified into: positive symptoms – any change in behaviour or thoughts, such as hallucinations or delusions. negative symptoms – where people appear to withdraw from the world around then, take no interest in everyday social interactions, and often appear emotionless and flat.
Bipolar disorder.
Some people with severe bipolar disorder have delusions or hallucinations. That's why they may be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia.
High functioning schizophrenia means you still experience symptoms but you're able to participate at work, school, and in your personal life to a higher degree than others with the condition. There is no particular diagnosis. With the right treatment plan, schizophrenia symptoms can be managed.
Schizophrenia involves a range of problems with thinking (cognition), behavior and emotions. Signs and symptoms may vary, but usually involve delusions, hallucinations or disorganized speech, and reflect an impaired ability to function.
Hallucinations: Seeing or hearing things that aren't there. Delusions: Mistaken but firmly held beliefs that are easy to prove wrong, like thinking you have superpowers, are a famous person, or people are out to get you. Disorganized speech: Using words and sentences that don't make sense to others.
The strongest risk factor that has been identified is familial risk with genetic loading. Other risk factors include pregnancy and delivery complications, infections during pregnancy, disturbances of early neuromotor and cognitive development and heavy cannabis use in adolescence.
Neurological soft signs (NSS) comprise subtle deficits in sensory integration, motor coordination, and sequencing of complex motor acts, which are typically observed in the majority of schizophrenia patients, including chronic cases and neuroleptic-naïve first-episode patients.
The main psychological triggers of schizophrenia are stressful life events, such as: bereavement. losing your job or home. divorce.
Patients with schizophrenia have decreased walking speed because of a smaller stride length. Reduced muscular power is associated with a reduction in the walking speed in persons without mental disorders.
Many patients have a hard time focusing and finishing the projects they've started. Their memories can be adversely affected. They might show little or no emotion and speak infrequently or not at all. Some people with schizophrenia are just plain unhappy all the time.
Residual schizophrenia is the mildest form of schizophrenia characteristic when positive symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia (hallucinations, delusional thinking) are not actively displayed in a patient although they will still be displaying negative symptoms (no expression of emotions, strange speech).
Compared with healthy subjects, schizophrenic patients may also have increased levels of serotonin and decreased levels of norepinephrine in the brain.
Schizophrenia can usually be diagnosed if: you've experienced 1 or more of the following symptoms most of the time for a month: delusions, hallucinations, hearing voices, incoherent speech, or negative symptoms, such as a flattening of emotions.
Your doctor will do a physical exam. You might also need tests, sometimes including brain imaging techniques such as a CT scan or MRI of the brain. Generally, lab results and imaging studies are normal in people who have schizophrenia.
In one study of patients with schizophrenia delusions, delusions of reference were the most common delusion type, followed closely by persecutory delusions.
Haloperidol, fluphenazine, and chlorpromazine are known as conventional, or typical, antipsychotics and have been used to treat schizophrenia for years.
Schizophrenia usually involves delusions (false beliefs), hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that don't exist), unusual physical behavior, and disorganized thinking and speech. It is common for people with schizophrenia to have paranoid thoughts or hear voices.