Schizoaffective Disorders: A Case Study

Schizophrenia is a serious debilitating mental illness in which the victim is afflicted with bizarre delusions and prominent hallucinations. The delusions are profoundly invalid beliefs, and the hallucinations are equally invalid perceptions. There is also a disordering of the reasoning process, disordered emotional expression, and loss of motivation for work and social living. Typically, the illness starts in adolescence or early adulthood and, if untreated, usually worsens with age. (Lickey, Gordon, 1991)

“Schizoaffective disorder is a chronic mental health condition mainly characterized by its symptoms of schizophrenia,

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that usually shows up in adolescence or young adulthood but can be seen in children as young as eight years old. It is a long term mental disorder characterized by a faulty perception of reality, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation. It typically involves the breakdown of a person’s relationship between thought, emotion, and behavior. Currently, there are five subtypes of schizophrenia included in the DSM-5; paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual. Each subtype is characterized by their most prominent symptom. For instance, paranoid schizophrenia is a subtype in which a person experiences

According to NAMI (), schizophrenia is a long term mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, make decisions, and relate to others, impairing a person from functioning to their full potential when left untreated. For these persons affected, it is many times difficult to distinguish what is real from what is not. “Unfortunately, no single simple course of treatment exists.” Research has linked schizophrenia to a multitude of possible causes” (NAMI).

Schizophrenia is a disease that has plagued societies around the world for centuries, although it was not given its formal name until 1911. It is characterized by the presence of positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are so named because of the presence of altered behaviors, such as delusions, hallucinations (usually auditory), extreme emotions, excited motor activity, and incoherent thoughts and speech. (1,2) In contrast, negative symptoms are described as a lack of behaviors, such as emotion, speech, social interaction, and action. (1,2) These symptoms are by no means concrete. Not all schizophrenic patients will exhibit all or even a majority of these symptoms, and there is some

The introduction of Clozapine, marked a turning point in the treatment of schizophrenia, as the first "atypical" antipsychotic drug lacking the propensity to produce ‘extra-pyramidal symptoms’ (associated with the older antipsychotic agents) (Kane et al. 1988). Even though, Clozapine has not conclusively demonstrated its significantly superior record or efficacy for psychosis (Gardner et al. 2005), it has proven exceptional effectiveness, compared to other more traditional antipsychotics (Claghorn et al. 1987). However, Kane et al. (1988) and others have concluded, 30–60% of all schizophrenic patients who fail to respond to typical antipsychotics may respond therapeutically/effectively to Clozapine (Breier et al. (1994) & Iqbal et al. (2003)). This is especially apparent for refractory schizophrenia (Kane et al. 1988), treatment-resistant schizoaffective disorders (Zarate et al. 1995) and aggression (Cohen & Underwood, 1994).

Schizophrenia consists of a broad spectrum of diagnostic criteria (both cognitive and emotional dysfunctions) that cause problems in every day functioning (Barlow et al., 2015). This criteria includes the presence of delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized/catatonic behaviour, and/or negative symptoms, such as diminished emotional expression (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The prevalence rate of this disorder is estimated to be in the range of 0.2% to 1.5% in the general population (Barlow et al., 2015).

Lori Schiller met all of the criterion for a Schizoaffective Disorder, bipolar type, with multiple acute episodes. Her symptoms either appeared during the same two week time period or lasted for longer than two weeks (American Psychiatric Association, 2013, p. 105.), (Schiller and Bennett).

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to recognize what is real. Common symptoms include false beliefs, unclear or confused thinking, auditory hallucinations, reduced social engagement and emotional expression, and lack of motivation. Diagnosis is based on observed behavior and the person 's reported experiences. Genetics and early environment, as well as psychological and social processes, appear to be important contributory factors. Some recreational and prescription drugs appear to cause or worsen symptoms. The many possible combinations of symptoms have triggered debate about whether the diagnosis represents a single disorder or a number of separate syndromes. Despite the

Schizoaffective disorder is a common mental illness that can be simply characterized as a mixture between schizophrenia and various mood disorders,

The disease is very uncommon with only .3% or 21.4 million at risk, not all will get the disease. Some symptoms of Schizoaffective disorder include; hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, depression, manic behavior, isolation, bi-polar, and some we will discuss later

Schizophrenia is known to be a devastating brain disorder that negatively affects many aspects of a person’s life, such as; thinking, language, emotions, social behavior, and ability to perceive reality (Varcarolis, 2010). Due to the high comorbidity of schizophrenia, patients often suffer from multiple disorders, when a mood disorder, such as mania, or depression, coexists with the schizophrenia, it is known as a schizoaffective disorder. Patient, A.S., is diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder due to her hallucinations, her manic state and paranoia. The purpose of this paper is to form an individualized Care Plan for A.S. in accord with the evidence-based practice and clinical manifestations. It will include the patient’s history (past and present) along with the appropriate interventions. In the paper we will discuss schizoaffective disorder as well as well as the symptoms, thoughts, and actions of a schizoaffective person. Furthermore, the pathophysiology of schizophrenia will be explained thoroughly, followed with the medications and interventions used for this disorder. The hope is to better understand the aspects of schizoaffective disorder and its manifestations, so one better care for a patient with such a disease.

Schizoaffective disorder is a disorder that is exhibited similarly to schizophrenia and mood disorders. Schizoaffective disorders characteristics consist of both auditory and visual hallucinations, delusions, mania, and depression. According to Pagel, “This seems all the more plausible because SAD (schizoaffective disorder), by definition, is characterized by criteria of two disorders (Pagel, 2014, p.239).” Many people have difficulty understanding the differences between schizoaffective disorder and schizophrenia, and the difference simply is that schizoaffective disorder also exhibits the symptoms of an affective disorder, along with hallucinations. Affective disorders consist of anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. The affective disorder that will be exhibited with schizoaffective disorder is either bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder. The bipolar type of schizoaffective disorder will exhibit episodes of hypomania and mania, whereas the major depressive disorder type will exhibit only depression. Other symptoms that can occur with schizoaffective disorder are paranoia, impaired socialization skills, lack of proper hygiene, and inability to perform ADL’s properly. There can be many contributing causes of schizoaffective disorder such as, genetics, substance abuse, brain chemistry, and stress. Schizoaffective disorder can be related to brain chemistry, by chemical and hormone imbalances, delayed development, and exposure

           The patient M. is a 26 year old married female who was brought to the ER by her husband after increased anxiety and depression worsened after a “spiritual attack” that lasted for over four days.  While in the ER the patient admitted to hearing multiple distant male and female voices all around her head and outside of her head.  She states not being able to make out the message but interprets them to be negative in nature. She told the ER Doc she felt people were trying to harm her and that “people in her life have used things against her.”  She felt her extended family may have used witchcraft and “chakra dolls” to cast spells on her.  She is cognizant of the strangeness of her claims but believes them to be real

The two diagnosis I considered after my first session with Caleb were Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophreniform Disorder. Caleb clearly displayed deficits in both social communication and social interaction during our session. Caleb was so socially withdrawn, that his mother, Nina, was the person I communicated with throughout the entirety of our session. Caleb occasionally mumbled responses to some of the questions; his answers ranged from “yes”, “no” to “I don’t know”, although he mumbled thank you to one of my compliments, Caleb definitely displayed deficits in social-emotional reciprocity. Caleb also exhibited deficits in nonverbal communication, avoiding eye contact throughout our entire session, he even avoided eye contact with his