Schizophrenia & Psychotic Disorders

Specialized Care for Schizophrenia & Psychosis Patients

Areas of functioning that suffer significant disturbance due to schizophrenia: Cognition, Perception, Emotion, Behavior, Eye movement, Socialization.

Abnormalities lead to suspected impaired neuronal communication:

  • Suspected alterations in chemical neuronal signal transmission
  • Excess dopamine in mesolimbic pathway
  • Decreased dopamine in the mesocortical pathway
  • Excess glutamate
  • Decreased gamma-ami

It is multifactorial: Neurobiological- Implicates three areas of neurobiological functioning: genetics, neurodevelopment, and neurobiological defects.

Abnormalities lead to suspected impaired neuronal communication:

  • Suspected alterations in chemical neuronal signal transmission
  • Excess dopamine in mesolimbic pathway
  • Decreased dopamine in the mesocortical pathway
  • Excess glutamate
  • Decreased gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
  • Decreased serotonin
Therapist Visiting A Patient — Germantown, MD — Supreme Healthcare & Wellness Services LLC

POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SYMPTOM CLUSTERS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA.

Positive Symptoms: Hallucinations, Delusions, Referential thinking, Disorganized behavior, Hostility, Grandiosity, Mania, Suspiciousness. These symptoms that respond positively to and that can be controlled by antipsychotic medications. Reflect excesses or distortions of normal brain functioning. Caused by increased dopamine in the mesolimbic pathway.

Negative Symptoms: Affective flattening, Alogia or poverty of speech, Avolition, Apathy, Abstract-thinking problems, Anhedonia, Attention deficits. These symptoms are less responsive to antipsychotic medications but respond better to atypical antipsychotic medications. Represent a decrease or loss of normal functioning. Caused by decreased dopamine in the mesocortical pathway.

Associated Symptoms: Inappropriate affect, Dysphoric mood, Depersonalization, Derealization, High anxiety. These symptoms are not required to be present to diagnose the disorder but often are present and a focus of treatment.

SUBTYPES OF SCHIZOPHRENIA:

  • Paranoid: Prominent delusions or auditory hallucinations. Lack of prominence of disorganized speech or behavior.
  • Disorganized: Prominence of disorganized speech, behavior, and flat or inappropriate affect.
  • Catatonic: Prominence of motor symptoms, including immobility as evidenced by catalepsy or stupor, excessive motor movement that is purposeless and not influenced by environmental stimuli, extreme negativity, mutism, oddities of posturing, echolalia (repetition of the last-heard words of other people), and echopraxia (imitation of observed behavior or movements).
  • Undifferentiated: Presence of symptoms consistent with schizophrenia but not a prominence of symptoms consistent with any of the other subtypes.
  • Residual: Absence of prominent delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and disorganized or catatonic behavior, and the continued presence of disturbance as indicated by presence of negative symptoms.




SCHIZOAFFECTIVE DISORDER 

Schizoaffective disorder is an uninterrupted period of illness in which the person experiences psychotic symptoms like those seen in schizophrenia as well as mood symptoms like major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar (BP) disorder. The disorder may be a psychotic spectrum disorder, mood spectrum disorder, or both.

Symptoms of schizophrenia—two or more of the following frequently present during a 1-month period: Delusions, Hallucinations, Disorganized speech, grossly disorganized behavior. Presence of negative symptoms but usually less severe than those in schizophrenia

Symptoms of one or more of mood disorders: Major depressive episode, Manic episode, Mixed-mood episode, Presence of delusions or hallucinations for at least 2 weeks in the absence of prominent mood symptoms.

Two subtypes differentiated by type of mood-related symptoms:

  • Depressive: When prominent mood symptoms are of the depressive type only
  • Bipolar: When predominant mood symptoms are manic or mixed type

BRIEF PSYCHOTIC DISORDER

  • Disorder with sudden onset of psychotic symptoms lasting at least 1 day but less than a month.
  • Age of onset in adolescence or early adulthood: Occurs more in younger clients (20 to 30 years of age).
  • Positive-type psychotic symptoms: Delusions, Hallucinations, grossly disorganized behavior, disorganized speech.
  • Can occur with or without an identified stressor.
  • Person always returns to premorbid level of functioning

Ready to book your appointment? Call our office today to schedule a visit. (855) 208-0890

Share by: