Symptoms and Characteristics of schizophrenia

Definition

Schizophrenia: mental illness that affects people’s thoughts, emotions and behaviours. 

1. Simple – when people gradually withdraw from society 
2. Paranoid – when people have delusional thoughts and hallucinations around one theme and may experience delusions of grandeur.
3. Catatonic – when people have motor activity disturbances that may involve them standing or sitting in the same positions for long periods of time.
4. Disorganised – when people have disorganised behaviour, thoughts and speech patterns. Also, they may experience auditory hallucinations.
5. Undifferentiated – when people do not fit in one of the types above but are still experiencing symptoms.

Characteristics 

The DSM-V states that a person can only be diagnosed with schizophrenia if the major symptoms are persistent for at least 6 months:

• Showing these symptoms for at least 1 month – hallucinations, delusions, flattening of emotions. 
• Showing declined social and/or occupational functioning.
• Showing no evidence that medical factors may be causing the behaviour.

Negative symptoms of schizophrenia are those that remove behaviours, such as reduction is speech abilities.

Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are those that add behaviours, such as hallucinations.

Case studies 

I’m still doing my research on this to give you the most useful and detailed case study. Meanwhile, if you find any that seem interesting, please drop the link in a comment.

By the way, knowing of 2 studies is good enough for our exam.