classification of schizophrenia

Question 1

what are the positive symptoms?

Answer 1

• hallucinations
• delusions/paranoia/grandeur
• disorganised speech
• disorganised/catatonic behaviour

Question 2

what are the negative symptoms?

Answer 2

• avolition
• speech poverty
• affective flattening
• anhedonia

Question 3

whats avolition?

Answer 3

reduced motivation

Question 4

what’s affective flattening?

Answer 4

reduced range/intensity of emotions

Question 5

whats anhedonia?

Answer 5

loss of interest/pleasure or reduced reaction to things that are pleasurable

Question 6

description of hallucinations

Answer 6

disturbances of perception in any of the senses. They are false perceptions that either have no basis in reality or are distorted perceptions of things that are. The most common are auditory hallucinations (hearing voices). Many schizophrenics report hearing voices or seeing people, telling them to do something (e.g. harm themselves or others) or commenting on their behaviour.

Question 7

description of delusions

Answer 7

firmly held irrational beliefs that have no basis in reality. Common types include:
Delusions of persecution – the belief that others want to harm, threaten or manipulate you e.g. the government, aliens.
Delusions of grandeur – the belief that they are an important individual, even god-like and have extraordinary powers e.g. the belief that they are Jesus Christ.
Delusions of control – the belief that their body is under external control e.g. being controlled by aliens or the government (e.g. have implanted radio transmitters).
Delusions of reference – the belief that events in the environment appear to be directly related to them e.g. special personal messages are being communicated through the TV.

Question 8

avolition description

Answer 8

a lack of purposeful, willed behaviour. It is the reduction, difficulty or inability to start and continue with goal-directed behaviour i.e. actions performed to achieve a result. People with schizophrenia often have a sharply reduced motivation to carry out a range of activities and results in lowered activity levels.
E.g. no longer being interested in going out and meeting friends, poor hygiene and grooming, lack of persistence in work or education, sitting in the house every day doing nothing.

Question 9

speech poverty description

Answer 9

limited speech output with limited, often repetitive content. It involves reduced frequency (amount) and quality of speech. This is sometimes accompanied by a delay in the sufferer’s verbal responses during conversation. It’s not that they don’t know the words, but that they have a difficulty in spontaneously producing them.