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SCHIZOPHRENIA- WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOWBY CATHY CYWINSKI, MSW LCSW
SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA
• Hallucinations- false perception
• Delusions –fixed false belief
• Grossly Disorganized Speech and Behavior
• Tend to dress and act in odd ways
• Flat Affect
SYMPTOMS
• Hallucinations-can occur with any of the five senses:
• Auditory hallucinations
• Visual hallucinations
• Tactile hallucinations
• Olfactory hallucinations
• Gustatory hallucinations
SYMPTOMS
• Bizarre delusion – this simply translated means a delusionregarding something that CANNOT possibly happen.
• Nonbizarre delusion – this is a delusion regarding something thatCAN possibly happen.
COMMON TYPES OF DELUSIONS
• Grandiose
• Erotomanic
• Delusions of Control
• Religious
• Persecutory
• Referential
SYMPTOMS
• Disorganized Speech
• Loose associations- may go from one topic to another with no clear logic
• Tangentiality- answers to questions may be obliquely related or completelyunrelated
• Incoherence or word salad- speech may be so severely disorganized thatit is nearly incomprehensible
SYMPTOMS
• Grossly disorganized behavior
• A person may appear disheveled, may dress in an unusual manner (manylayers of clothes on a hot day), or may display inappropriate sexual behavior.
• Alogia-poverty of speech- brief, empty replies
• Avolition- inability to initiate and persist in goal directed activates. The person may sit for long
periods of time and show little interest in participating in work or social activities.
• Catatonic motor behaviors- a marked decrease in reactivity to the environments.
SYMPTOMS
• Negative Symptoms
• Affect flattening- a person’s face appearing immobile and unresponsive, with poor eye
contact and reduced body language
IS THERE SOMETHING TO FEAR
• Myth: People with a severe mental illness are violent and unpredictable.
• Fact: The vast majority of people with mental health problems are no more likely to be
violent than anyone else. Most people with mental illness are not violent and only 3%-5% of
violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a serious mental illness. In fact, people
with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than
the general population. (Survey from mentalhealth.gov)
• If a person talks about Command Hallucinations- a voice commanding them to do something
i.e. – hurt themselves or someone else, get help immediately.
TREATMENT
• Schizophrenia is associated with high levels of dopamine and unknown irregularities of
glutamate.
• Medications used to treat schizophrenia aim to decrease the amount of dopamine being
processed by the brain.
• Many of the medications used to treat schizophrenia have a high occurrence of
unpleasant side effects that must be concurrently treated.
WAYS TO MANAGE THOUGHT DISORDER
• Redirection
• Reflect back to a reality based topic
• When there is doubt
• Reality checking
• Stay on track
• Don’t feed into the delusion
• Questions?
• Comments?