Schizophrenia

Department of Psychiatry 1st Faculty of Medicine Charles University, Prague Head: Prof. MUDr. Ji Raboch, DrSc.

Definition

The schizophrenic disorders are characterized in general by fundamental and characteristic distortions of thinking and perception, and affects that are inappropriate or blunted. Clear consciousness and intellectual capacity are usually maintained although certain cognitive deficits may evolve in the course of time. The most important psychopathological phenomena include
thought echo thought insertion or withdrawal thought broadcasting delusional perception and delusions of control influence or passivity hallucinatory voices commenting or discussing the patient in the third person thought disorders and negative symptoms.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia occurs with regular frequency nearly everywhere in the world in 1 % of population and begins mainly in young age (mostly around 16 to 25 years).
Schizophrenia is defined by
a group of characteristic positive and negative symptoms deterioration in social, occupational, or interpersonal relationships continuous signs of the disturbance for at least 6 months

History

Emil Kraepelin: This illness develops relatively early in life, and its course is likely deteriorating and chronic; deterioration reminded dementia (Dementia praecox), but was not followed by any organic changes of the brain, detectable at that time. Eugen Bleuler: He renamed Kraepelins dementia praecox as schizophrenia (1911); he recognized the cognitive impairment in this illness, which he named as a splitting of mind. Kurt Schneider: He emphasized the role of psychotic symptoms, as hallucinations, delusions and gave them the privilege of the first rank symptoms even in the concept of the diagnosis of schizophrenia.

4 A (Bleuler)
Bleuler maintained, that for the diagnosis of schizophrenia are most important the following four fundamental symptoms:
affective blunting disturbance of association (fragmented thinking) autism ambivalence (fragmented emotional response)

These groups of symptoms, are called four A s and Bleuler thought, that they are primary for this diagnosis. The other known symptoms, hallucinations, delusions, which are appearing in schizophrenia very often also, he used to call as a secondary symptoms, because they could be seen in any other psychotic disease, which are caused by quite different factors from intoxication to infection or other disease entities.

Course of Illness

Course of schizophrenia:
continuous without temporary improvement episodic with progressive or stable deficit episodic with complete or incomplete remission

Typical stages of schizophrenia:

prodromal phase active phase residual phase

Clinical Picture

Diagnostic manuals:
lCD-10 (International Classification of Disease, WHO) DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, APA)

Clinical picture of schizophrenia is according to lCD10, defined from the point of view of the presence and expression of primary and/or secondary symptoms (at present covered by the terms negative and positive symptoms):
the negative symptoms are represented by cognitive disorders, having its origin probably in the disorders of associations of thoughts, combined with emotional blunting and small or missing production of hallucinations and delusions the positive symptom are characterized by the presence of hallucinations and delusions the division is not quite strict and lesser or greater mixture of symptoms from these two groups are possible

Positive and Negative Symptoms

Negative Alogia Affective flattening Positive Hallucinations Delusions

Avolition-apathy Anhedonia-asociality Attentional impairment

Bizarre behaviour Positive formal thought disorder

Andreasen N.C., Roy M.-A., Flaum M.: Positive and negative symptoms. In: Schizophrenia, Hirsch S.R. and Weinberger D.R., eds., Blackwell Science, pp. 28-45, 1995

The Criteria of Diagnosis

For the diagnosis of schizophrenia is necessary presence of one very clear symptom - from point a) to d) or the presence of the symptoms from at least two groups from point e) to h) for one month or more: a) the hearing of own thoughts, the feelings of thought withdrawal, thought insertion, or thought broadcasting b) the delusions of control, outside manipulation and influence, or the feelings of passivity, which are connected with the movements of the body or extremities, specific thoughts, acting or feelings, delusional perception c) hallucinated voices, which are commenting permanently the behavior of the patient or they talk about him between themselves, or the other types of hallucinatory voices, coming from different parts of body d) permanent delusions of different kind, which are inappropriate and unacceptable in given culture

The Criteria of Diagnosis

e) the lasting hallucination of every form f) blocks or intrusion of thoughts into the flow of thinking and resulting incoherence and irrelevance of speach, or neologisms g) catatonic behavior h) the negative symptoms, for instance the expressed apathy, poor speech, blunting and inappropriatness of emotional reactions i) expressed and conspicuous qualitative changes in patients behavior, the loss of interests, hobbies, aimlesness, inactivity, the loss of relations to others and social withdrawal

Diagnosis of acute schizophorm disorder (F23.2) if the conditions for diagnosis of schizophrenia are fulfilled, but lasting less than one month Diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder (F25) - if the schizophrenic and affective symptoms are developing together at the same time

F20-F29 Schizophrenia, Schizotypal

and Delusional Disorders

Schizophrenia Paranoid schizophrenia Hebephrenic schizophrenia Catatonic schizophrenia Undifferentiated schizophrenia Post-schizophrenic depression Residual schizophrenia Simple schizophrenia Other schizophrenia Schizophrenia, unspecified

F20 F20.0 F20.1 F20.2 F20.3 F20.4 F20.5 F20.6 F20.8 F20.9

F20-F29 Schizophrenia, Schizotypal

and Delusional Disorders

Schizotypal disorder

F21 F22 F22.0 F22.8 F22.9

Persistent delusional disorders Delusional disorder Other persistent delusional disorders Persistent delusional disorder, unspecified

F23 Acute and transient psychotic disorders F23.1 Acute polymorphic psychotic disorder with symptoms of schizophrenia F23.2 Acute schizophrenia-like psychotic disorder F23.3 Other acute predominantly delusional psychotic disorders F23.8 Other acute and transient psychotic disorders F23.9 Acute and transient psychotic disorder, unspecified

F20-F29 Schizophrenia, Schizotypal

and Delusional Disorders

Induced delusional disorder

F24 F25 F25.0 F25.1 F25.2 F25.8 F25.9 F28

Schizoaffective disorders Schizoaffective disorder, manic type Schizoaffective disorder, depressive type Schizoaffective disorder, mixed type Other schizoaffective disorders Schizoaffective disorder, unspecified Other nonorganic psychotic disorders

F29

Unspecified nonorganic psychosis

F20.0 Paranoid Schizophrenia

Paranoid schizophrenia is characterized mainly by delusions of persecution, feelings of passive or active control, feelings of intrusion, and often by megalomanic tendencies also. The delusions are not usually systemized too much, without tight logical connections and are often combined with hallucinations of different senses, mostly with hearing voices.
Disturbances of affect, volition and speech, and catatonic symptoms, are either absent or relatively inconspicuous.

F20.1 Hebephrenic Schizophrenia

Hebephrenic schizophrenia is characterized by disorganized thinking with blunted and inappropriate emotions. It begins mostly in adolescent age, the behavior is often bizarre. There could appear mannerisms, grimacing, inappropriate laugh and joking, pseudophilosophical brooding and sudden impulsive reactions without external stimulation. There is a tendency to social isolation. Usually the prognosis is poor because of the rapid development of "negative" symptoms, particularly flattening of affect and loss of volition. Hebephrenia should normally be diagnosed only in adolescents or young adults.

Denoted also as disorganized schizophrenia

F20.2 Catatonic Schizophrenia

Catatonic schizophrenia is characterized mainly by motoric activity, which might be strongly increased (hypekinesis) or decreased (stupor), or automatic obedience and negativism. We recognize two forms:
productive form which shows catatonic excitement, extreme and often aggressive activity. Treatment by neuroleptics or by electroconvulsive therapy. stuporose form characterized by general inhibition of patients behavior or at least by retardation and slowness, followed often by mutism, negativism, fexibilitas cerea or by stupor. The consciousness is not absent.

F20.3 Undifferentiated Schizophrenia

Psychotic conditions meeting the general diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia but not conforming to any of the subtypes in F20.0-F20.2, or exhibiting the features of more than one of them without a clear predominance of a particular set of diagnostic characteristics.
This subgroup represents also the former diagnosis of atypical schizophrenia.

F20.4 Postschizophrenic Depression

A depressive episode, which may be prolonged, arising in the aftermath of a schizophrenic illness. Some schizophrenic symptoms, either positive or negative, must still be present but they no longer dominate the clinical picture. These depressive states are associated with an increased risk of suicide.

F20.5 Residual Schizophrenia

A chronic stage in the development of schizophrenia with clear succession from the initial stage with one or more episodes characterized by general criteria of schizophrenia to the late stage with longlasting negative symptoms and deterioration (not necessarily irreversible).

F20.6 Simple Schizophrenia

Simple schizophrenia is characterized by early and slowly developing initial stage with growing social isolation, withdrawal, small activity, passivity, avolition and dependence on the others. The patients are indifferent, without any initiative and volition. There is not expressed the presence of hallucinations and delusions.

F21 Schizotypal disorder

According to lCD-10 this disorder is characterized by eccentric behavior and by deviations of thinking and affectivity, which are similar to that occurring in schizophrenia, but without psychotic features and expressed symptoms of schizophrenia of any type.

F22 Persistent Delusional Disorders

Includes a variety of disorders in which long-standing delusions constitute the only, or the most conspicuous, clinical characteristic and which cannot be classified as organic, schizophrenic or affective. Their origin is probably heterogeneous, but it seems, that there is some relation to schizophrenia.

F22.0 Delusional Disorder

A disorder characterized by the development of one delusion or of the group of similar related delusions, which are persisting unusually long, very often for the whole life. Other psychopathological symptoms hallucinations, intrusion of thoughts etc. are not present and are excluding this diagnosis. It begins usually in the middle age.

F23 Acute and Transient Psychotic Disorders

The criteria should be the following features:

acute beginning (to two weeks) presence of typical symptoms (quickly changing polymorphic symptoms) presence of typical schizophrenic symptoms.

Complete recovery usually occurs within a few months, often within a few weeks or even days. The disorder may or may not be associated with acute stress, defined as usually stressful events preceding the onset by one to two weeks.

F24 Induced Delusional Disorder

A delusional disorder shared by two or more people with close emotional links. Only one of the people suffers from a genuine psychotic disorder; the delusions are induced in the other(s) and usually disappear when the people are separated. The psychotic disorder of the dominant member of this dyad is mainly, but not necessarily, of schizophrenic type. The original delusions of dominant member and his partner are usually chronic, either persecutory or megalomanic.

F25 Schizoaffective Disorders

Episodic disorders in which both affective and schizophrenic symptoms are prominent (during the same episode of the illness or at least during few days) but which do not justify a diagnosis of either schizophrenia or depressive or manic episodes. Patients suffering from periodic schizoaffective disorders, especially with manic symptoms, have usually good prognosis with full remissions without any remaining defects. They are divided in different subgroups:
F25.0 F25.1 F25.2 F25.8 F25.9 Schizoaffective disorder, manic type Schizoaffective disorder, depressive type Schizoaffective disorder, mixed type Other schizoaffective disorders Schizoaffective disorder, unspecified

Genetics of Schizophrenia

Many psychiatric disorders are multifactorial (caused by the interaction of external and genetic factors) and from the genetic point of view very often polygenically determined.
Relative risk for schizophrenia is around:
1% for normal population 5.6% for parents 10.1% for siblings 12.8% for children

Etiology of Schizophrenia

The etiology and pathogenesis of schizophrenia is not known

It is accepted, that schizophrenia is the group of schizophrenias which origin is multifactorial:
internal factors genetic, inborn, biochemical external factors trauma, infection of CNS, stress

Etiology of Schizophrenia Dopamine Hypothesis

The most influential and plausible are the hypotheses, based on the supposed disorder of neurotransmission in the brain, derived mainly from
1. the effects of antipsychotic drugs that have in common the ability to inhibit the dopaminergic system by blocking action of dopamine in the brain 2. dopamine-releasing drugs (amphetamine, mescaline, diethyl amide of lysergic acid - LSD) that can induce state closely resembling paranoid schizophrenia

Classical dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia: Psychotic symptoms are related to dopaminergic hyperactivity in the brain. Hyperactivity of dopaminergic systems during schizophrenia is result of increased sensitivity and density of dopamine D2 receptors in the different parts of the brain.

Etiology of Schizophrenia Contemporary Models

Dopamine hypothesis revisited: various neurotransmitter systems probably takes place in the etiology of schizophrenia (norepinephric, serotonergic, glutamatergic, some peptidergic systems); based on effects of atypical antipsychotics especially.
Contemporary models of schizophrenia conceptualize it as a neurocognitive disorder, with the various signs and symptoms reflecting the downstream effects of a more fundamental cognitive deficit:
the symptoms of schizophrenia arise from cognitive dysmetria (Nancy C. Andreasen) concept of schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder (Daniel R. Weinberger)

Etiology of Schizophrenia Neurodevelopmental Model

Neurodevelopmental model supposes in schizophrenia the presence of silent lesion in the brain, mostly in the parts, important for the development of integration (frontal, parietal and temporal), which is caused by different factors (genetic, inborn, infection, trauma...) during very early development of the brain in prenatal or early postnatal period of life. It does not interfere too much with the basic brain functioning in early years, but expresses itself in the time, when the subject is stressed by demands of growing needs for integration, during formative years in adolescence and young adulthood.

Treatment of Schizophrenia

The acute psychotic schizophrenic patients will respond usually to antipsychotic medication. According to current consensus we use in the first line therapy the newer atypical antipsychotics, because their use is not complicated by appearance of extrapyramidal side-effects, or these are much lower than with classical antipsychotics.
conventional antipsychotics (classical neuroleptics) atypical antipsychotics

chlorpromazine, chlorprotixene, clopenthixole, levopromazine, periciazine, thioridazine

droperidole, flupentixol, fluphenazine, fluspirilene, haloperidol, melperone, oxyprothepine, penfluridol, perphenazine, pimozide, prochlorperazine, trifluoperazine amisulpiride, clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, sertindole, sulpiride