Unlike other illnesses, schizophrenia symptoms are peculiar for the observers. The schizophrenic people do not have any idea that their behavior or thoughts are different to others. This lack of insight is the cause for frustration and fear that their loved ones may abandon them. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder. The symptoms of schizophrenia and psychosis are very similar. The perceptions, beliefs, emotions and thought processes seem disconnected from reality. The person may seem normal at most of the times since these symptoms are not stable. The symptoms of schizophrenia are grouped under 3 classes.
Positive Symptoms
These include experiences and behavior that differs the ill person from the healthy person. They are also called as psychotic symptoms. They include
· Delusions: These are false beliefs which are meaningless. Though everyone has wrong beliefs at times, these symptoms in particular possess an abnormal obsessive quality. The affected person can never be explained that his beliefs are unreal.
· Hallucinations: These are imaginary experiences which are not connected to the world. They occur when the patient is completely awake and not when under alcohol or substance abuse. The most common among them are auditory hallucinations like hearing voices, visual hallucinations like seeing things but even a touch or taste or smell can be hallucinated.
· Disorganized speech/ loose association: Patients speak unconnected words. They form their own language rules. They are strung together depending upon rhyme, sound, free associations or puns. Though everyone tends to do these errors when tired or sleepy, affected patient’s speech is impossible to comprehend.
· Disorganized/ catatonic behavior: Such behavior is not sensible and not goal-oriented. Examples of disorganized behavior are laughing inappropriately, removing clothes off in a bus while travelling, etc. Examples of catatonic behavior are adopting strange body postures or freezing.
Negative Symptoms
They explain normal traits that are completely lost or lowered in the ill person. They consist of:
· Flattened affect: patients seem emotionless or very few emotions. They do not respond to disturbing situations and images.
· Anhedonia: Patients lose the ability to express their feelings. They will not find happiness in things which they before enjoyed.
· Lack of planning ability or avolition.
· Reduced speech.
Cognitive Symptoms
These are connected to the thought processes of the patient. Though these symptoms do not indicate schizophrenia, most of such symptoms occur in the illness. They comprise
· Difficulty maintaining attention: lack of ability to concentrate makes schizophrenic people appear spacey or jump to various topics in a short time.
· Memory problems: The illness is found to affect the working memory, where the important information like phone number digits, etc is stored. Hence they cannot remember things.
· Difficulty in structuring activities: executive control permits for the identification of steps required to finish a task and perform them in order. Besides, this is used to suppress our distractions when a job is getting done. Schizophrenic people have a reduced executive control.
· Lack of insight: schizophrenic people possess a blindspot that avoids them to realize their illness. Hence the family members must be very careful in order to assist the patient in maintaining the treatment schedule to control symptoms.