schizophrenia

Specialties Psychiatric

Published

Hello everyone,

I am having hard time remembering subtypes of schizophrenia. Also the positive and negative symptoms hard to distinguish. How u guys do it? I don't believe in cramming but I think this is the only choice I have:uhoh3:

Specializes in Mental Health.

Try this...

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/schizoph.cfm#symptoms

These workbooks are what I use for patient education. They may be a bit simplistic for you, but I have learned a lot from them:

http://www.treatmentteam.com

info below copied from here:

http://www.treatmentteam.com/pdf/treatment_prevention/UnderstandingIllness.pdf

Positive Symptoms

Positive symptoms do not refer to symptoms that are “good.” They refer to

symptoms such as thoughts, beliefs, and sensations that you may experience,

but which are not real. You might experience sounds, voices, or images that

other people say they don’t experience. These are called hallucinations.

Noises may seem louder than usual. So it might be hard for you to focus on

a conversation or to understand what other people are saying. Colors may

seem brighter than usual or you might see shadows.

Delusions (believing things that others say are not true) are another type of

positive symptom. You might feel afraid of being followed, harmed, or

killed and not know why. These are all types of positive symptoms.

Negative Symptoms

Negative symptoms may be described as lack of energy or motivation—

you don’t feel like doing the things you used to do when you were well.

They are symptoms that may be hard to explain to other people.

Some examples include:

• You don’t feel like talking to other people

• You don’t have much energy to do things

• You don’t care much about how you look

Cognitive Symptoms

Cognitive symptoms refer to problems with learning and concentration.

It may be harder for you to concentrate on things like reading a book or

watching TV. Also, you may find it hard to learn new information the first

time—like getting directions to go someplace new.

You may find it hard to focus on what someone else is saying. Or it may be

hard for you to get your thoughts together to explain how you feel.

Positive symptoms = presence of odd behaviors - hallucinations, delusions

Negative symptoms = absence of behaviors that should be there; desire to interact, engage in hygiene, etc.

Very simplified, but maybe a way to remember the distinction between positive and negative symptoms

As far as I remember Schizophrenia has several types:

Paranoid, Undifferentiated, Residual

Positive symptoms refers to alteration in thought such as hallucinations and delusions while negative symptoms is alteration in emotion such as flat affect, mood swing and alexithymia

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