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Schizophrenia

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Submitted By FHildebran
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Felecia Hildebran
PSY-102
March 8, 2015
Kevin Salcido

Schizophrenia
Schizophrenic patients are the largest percentage of people hospitalized for a mental disorder and are the least likely to recover (Feldman, 2010). Schizophrenia is a disorder that involves a severe distortion of reality; there are five different types and it is difficult to determine the difference between them. Additionally, because symptoms of schizophrenia tends to develop slowly over time and vary from patient to patient, it is often difficult to diagnose the disorder. This being said, it is important that there is an effort put forth to try to discover more beneficial treatments and hopefully a cure. Furthermore, through research, the diagnosing process of the disorder can be sped up and made to be much more accurate. Symptoms that set schizophrenia apart from other disorders include, but are not limited to: a decline in functioning, illogical thinking, delusions, hallucinations, lack of emotion, and withdrawal from social events. From there the disorder is divided into five categories or types: disorganized schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia, catatonic schizophrenia, undifferentiated schizophrenia, and residual schizophrenia. Disorganized schizophrenia often consists of inappropriate laughter, incoherent speech, infantile and sometimes obscene behavior. Paranoid schizophrenia symptoms include: delusions, hallucinations, lack of judgement, and unpredictable behavior. Disturbances in movement, which can include the loss of all movement or wild, violent movements, occurs in catatonic schizophrenia. Those labeled under undifferentiated schizophrenia have a mix of symptoms from other types and those with residual have minor signs after a severe episode. In addition to that, schizophrenia is divided further into type one and type two. Type one consists of more positive symptoms - extra feelings/ behavior that are not present without the average person - while type two consists of more negative symptoms - lack of feelings/ behavior that should be present. (Feldman, 2010). Research has been conducted to determine the differences between those with schizophrenia and those with no mental disorder. Sungwon Park and Hyun Rye Kim conducted experiments comparing twenty year olds, who had schizophrenia for more than 10 years, to those without the disorder. They found that Schizophrenic patients performed worse than the controls on their intelligence quotient (IQ) test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and theory of mind task. (Park, 2014). The reason for such results could be that schizophrenics often jump to conclusions well before the average person which is what may cause their delusions. Based upon the above results, it can be concluded that these tests can help indicate the possibility of schizophrenia by comparing the results of the person being tested to the average scores from the control and schizophrenic groups. Current treatments for the disorder include medications that treat the symptoms of schizophrenia, but do not cure the disorder, and therapy to learn how to live with the disorder as well as ensuring it does not control one’s life. The question that is then brought to mind is: how will treatment versus no treatment effect those diagnosed? In order to find the answer to this question, research was done in South-East Nigeria by a research team lead by P.C. Odinka. This team compared the symptoms of patients who had been treated for the disorder with those that had not had any treatment. They found that those who had a longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) had more severe negative symptoms than those who had a shorter DUP. (Odinka, 2014). According to this research, the longer the DUP the more severe the symptoms. This emphasizes the importance of diagnosing and treating the disorder as quickly as possible so as to avoid the increasing of the severity of symptoms. If diagnosis can be made more easily then treatment can be provided and patients will have a higher chance of recovery. Unfortunately, accurately diagnosing schizophrenia isn’t the easiest thing to do because many of its obvious symptoms are also symptoms of other disorders or another disorder itself is a symptom. This becomes apparent when looking at social anhedonia and depression. Social anhedonia is found to be one of the key characteristics of schizophrenia; however, it is also a key characteristic of depression, certain mood disorders, and many personality disorders. According to a study done by Christine Hooker, Taylor Benson, and their research partners, those who had high social anhedonia also had several schizotypal traits in addition to worse social functioning. (2014). This experiment had subjects record journal entries after experiencing positive, negative, and then neutral expressions. Researchers also found that high social anhedonia test subjects had less ventral lateral prefrontal cortex activity when experiencing positive versus neutral expression. Additionally, researchers found that high social anhedonia patients with low ventral lateral prefrontal cortex activity had worse paranoia. (Benson, 2014). These conclusions show that social anhedonia often leads to schizophrenia and schizophrenic patients tend to have difficulties telling the difference between positive and neutral expressions. Depression is one of the key early warning signs of schizophrenia however it often doesn’t mean that a patient may be schizophrenic because depression is a disorder in and of itself and is much more common. Due to this, researchers such as Jie Yu Chuang have compared the two disorders to each other as well as control groups. It was found that in the cognition/ expression component and pleasure/ motivation components both schizophrenic and depression patients scored higher than the controls. Additionally, schizophrenics scored higher than those with depression in the cognition expression components but lower in the pleasure/ motivation components. (Yung, 2014). This shows that those with schizophrenia have slightly different mindsets than those with schizophrenia. However, these results may differ if the patient were to have both depression and schizophrenia which can occur quite easily. Overall, there are quite a few differences between the minds of schizophrenics and the minds of of those with other mental disorders as well as those with an average mind. These differences can be used to help narrow down the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Furthermore, the diagnosis of symptoms of schizophrenia such as social anhedonia and depression, as mentioned above, can help patients who have schizophrenia but who have not yet been diagnosed with the disorder gain treatment for some of their symptoms and start on the path of recovery much sooner. The quicker those with schizophrenia start treatment the less severe their symptoms which leads to less confusion, isolation, and suffering of those with the disorder.

References:
Christine I. H. and Taylor L. B., Hong Y., Laura M. T., and Sarah H. L. (2014). Neural Activity to
Positive Expressions Predicts Daily Experience of Schizophrenia-Spectrum Symptoms in Adults
With High Social Anhedonia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 123(1), 190-204.
Jie-Yu C. Graham K. M., Antonio M., Nuria S., Roger T., Jenny S., Hisham Z., Robert B. D., Paul C.
F. and John S. (2014). Brain structural signatures of negative symptoms in depression and schizophrenia. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 5, 1-10.
Lecture 6. (2010). PSY-102: General Psychology. Phoenix, AZ: Grand Canyon University.
P. C. Odinka, A. C. Ndukuba, R. C. Muomah, M. Oche, M. U. Osika, M. O. Bakare, A. O.
Agomoh, R. Uwakwe (2014). Positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia as correlates of help-seeking behavior and the duration of untreated psychosis in south-east Nigeria. South
African Journal of Psychiatr, 20(4), 166-171.
Sungwon P. and Hyun R. K. (2014). Neurocognition, Social Cognition and Symptoms in
Schizophrenia. International Journal of Bio-Science & Bio-Technology, 6(5), 185-192.

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