The characteristics symptoms of schizophrenia involve a range of cognitive and emotional dysfunctions that include perception, inferential thinking, language and communication, behavioral monitoring affect, fluency and productivity of thought and speech, hedonic capacity, volition and drive and attention. The DSM -IV-TR conceptualizes the symptoms into two broad categories of positive and negative criterion.
Positive symptoms include distortion in thought content (delusion), Perceptions (hallucinations), language and thought process( disorganized speech) and self monitoring or behavior (catatonic behavior). The negative symptoms criterion include restrictions in the range and intensity of emotion, in the fluency and productivity of thought and speech, and in the initiation of goal-directed behavior.
For one to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, the disturbance must persist for a continuous period of at least 6 months. During that period there must be at last one month of symptoms (or less than one month if symptoms were successfully treated) that meet the positive or negative criterion. Once schizophrenia occurs, it becomes a chronic condition that continues throughout the remainder of the patient life with varying degree of intensity.
The DSM-IV-TR divides schizophrenia in subtypes and the diagnosis of a particular subtype is based on the symptoms that occasioned the most recent evaluation or admission to clinical care and may change with time. The five subtypes are Paranoid type, Disorganized type, Catatonic type, undifferentiated type and the residual type.
Causes of schizophrenia
No one can clearly say for sure that schizophrenia is caused by a particular factor. One may be predisposed by genetic factors but that in itself, as research has shown, is not a gurantee that one will get it. What is known is that the development of schizophrenia can be attributed to a combination of biological dispositions (e.g. inheriting certain genes) and the environment a person is exposed to.
Brain development disruption is now known to be the result of genetic predisposition and environmental stresses early in development (e.g. during pregnancy and /or early development). This, it is suggested leads to alterations in the brain making and may lead to a person being susceptible to developing schizophrenia.
A research study by Columbia University (2004) identified approximately 14% of schizophrenia cases as having been caused by influenza during the mothers pregnancy. The study indicated that flu during the first trimester increased the risk of developing schizophrenia by the child by about 7% while flu during the third trimester increased the risk by about 3%.
Read more: http://www.bukisa.com/articles/336842_what-may-cause-schizophrenia#ixzz0xeJ4vmyP
This is a blog that I educate and express my opinions on some health and mental Health issues. Different therapies used in psychotherapy are also discussed.
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