What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?
For a person with schizophrenia, everyday tasks like thinking clearly, controlling emotions, making decisions, and relating to others are challenges. People with schizophrenia can have: • “positive” symptoms of schizophrenia psychological disturbances “added” as a result of a disorder, such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and agitation • “negative” symptoms of schizophrenia psychological capabilities the patient has “lost,” such as a lack of drive or initiative, social withdrawal, apathy, and emotional unresponsiveness You may have heard the term “psychotic” used in association with schizophrenia. A psychotic episode is a worsening of symptoms, during which a person experiences hallucinations and/or delusions.
When untreated, people with schizophrenia develop bizarre, fixed ideas called delusions. For example, they may have the mistaken belief that they are being persecuted by unknown forces. People with schizophrenia also experience hallucinations, in which they may hear voices commanding them to act in certain ways. For example, a voice may tell them to kill themselves. People with schizophrenia also evidence difficulty in organizing their thoughts and planning their ideas, and they frequently lose interest and motivation in life. This is slightly different from being depressed: It is a fundamental lack of interest as opposed to being too depressed to be interested. Finally, people with schizophrenia may demonstrate memory deficits, attentional problems, and/or difficulties in expressing emotions and understanding them in others. These are referred to as the neurocognitive deficits of schizophrenia.
The symptoms are divided into positive symptoms and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are those that appear and are noticeable. They include delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thought mood or behaviour, and changes in sensitivity. Negative symptoms cannot be seen, as they are the elements taken away from a person. They include slowing of physical activity, reduced motivation, loss of interest in feelings and lives of others, and less concern for personal appearance. Drugs used for schizophrenia used to only treat the positive symptoms. However, more recently, drugs have been developed and used that treat both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
• Answer: Symptoms of schizophrenia are divided into the following categories: Delusions — This includes false ideas about other people, commonly thinking that someone is spying on them, cheating them, or out to harm them, even when evidence is to the contrary. A delusion can also be a false belief about oneself – such as believing you are a famous person. Hallucinations — This includes seeing, hearing, or smelling something that is not there, or sometimes even tasting or feeling things that are not real. The most common schizophrenic hallucination is hearing voices that give commands or make comments to the patient about their behavior. Disorganized thinking/nonsensical speech — Conversation jumps radically from topic to topic and may contain phrases that are totally irrelevant, or made up words. Sometimes conversation may seem deep and intellectual, when it is really illogical. Social withdrawal and apathy — Disinterest in their life or surroundings is frequently coupled with a l
