Schizoaffective Disorder: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

What does this disorder consist of and how to minimize its effects?

The Schizoaffective Disorder is a theoretically controversial disorder, but a clinical reality that affects 0.3% of the population. To know its symptoms, effects and characteristics that can explain its causes is to know this diagnostic category.

What is Schizoaffective Disorder?

Broadly speaking, we can understand Schizoaffective Disorder as a mental disorder that combines psychotic symptomatology (delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, highly disorganized behavior or negative symptomatology such as diminished emotional expression or abulia) and mood disorders (mania-depression).

Thus, Schizoaffective Disorder primarily affects perception and emotional psychological processes.

Symptoms and Diagnosis of Schizoaffective Disorder

Schizoaffective Disorder is usually diagnosed during the period of psychotic illness because of its symptomatology. Episodes of depression or mania are present for most of the duration of the illness.

Due to the wide variety of psychiatric and medical conditions that can be associated with psychotic symptomatology and mood symptoms, Schizoaffective Disorder can often be confused with other disorders, such as bipolar disorder with psychotic features, major depressive disorder with psychotic features.... To a certain extent, the boundaries of this diagnostic category are blurred.In some ways, the boundaries of this diagnostic category are unclear, and this is what causes debate as to whether it is an independent clinical entity or the coexistence of several disorders.

To distinguish it from other disorders (such as bipolar), psychotic features, delusions or hallucinations must be present for at least 2 weeks in the absence of a major mood episode (depressive or manic). Thus, the criterion used to distinguish between Schizoaffective Disorder and other types of mental disorders is primarily time (duration, frequency of onset of symptoms, etc.).

The difficulty in diagnosing this disorder lies in knowing whether mood symptoms have been present for the majority of the total active and residual duration of the illness, determining when there were significant mood symptoms accompanied by psychotic symptomatology. In order to know these data, the health professional must have a thorough knowledge of the subject's clinical history..

Who suffers from this type of psychopathology?

The prevalence of Schizoaffective Disorder in the population is 0.3%. It is estimated that its frequency is one third of the population affected by schizophrenia..

Its incidence is higher in the female population. This is mainly due to the higher incidence of depressive-type symptomatology among women compared to men, something that possibly has genetic but also cultural and social causes.

When does it usually start to develop?

There is consensus that the age of onset of Schizoaffective Disorder usually occurs in early adulthood, although this does not prevent it from occurring during adolescence or in later stages of life.

In addition, there is a differentiated pattern of onset depending on the age of the person who begins to experience symptoms. In young adults, Schizoaffective Disorder of the bipolar type usually prevails, while in older adults Schizoaffective Disorder of the depressive type usually prevails.

How does Schizoaffective Disorder influence people who suffer from it?

The way in which Schizoaffective Disorder leaves an imprint on the day-to-day life of those who experience it has to do with practically all areas of life. However, a few main aspects can be highlighted:

• The ability to continue functioning at the work level is usually affected, although, unlike in the case of schizoaffective disorder, this is not always the case.However, unlike in schizophrenia, this is not a defining criterion.

• Social contact is impaired by the Schizoaffective Disorder. The capacity for self-care is also affected, although as in the previous cases, the symptomatology is usually less severe and persistent than in schizophrenia.

• The anosognosia or absence of introspection is common in Schizoaffective Disorder, being less severe than in schizophrenia.

• There is the possibility of being associated with disorders related to alcohol or other substances. or other substances.

Prognosis

Schizoaffective disorder usually has a better prognosis than schizophrenia. On the contrary, its prognosis is usually worse than that of mood disorders, among other things because the symptoms related to schizophrenia are often more severe than those of schizophrenia.One of the reasons for this is that the symptoms related to perceptual problems represent a very abrupt qualitative change from what would be expected in a person without this disorder, while the mood disturbances can be understood as a problem of a rather quantitative nature.

In general, the improvement that occurs is understood from a functional as well as a neurological point of view. We can then place it in an intermediate position between the two.

The higher the prevalence of psychotic symptomatology, the greater the chronicity of the disorder.. The duration of the course of the disease also plays a role. The longer the duration, the greater the chronicity.

Treatment and psychotherapy

At present there are no tests or Biological measures that can help us to diagnose Schizoaffective Disorder. There is no certainty as to whether there is a neurobiologically based difference between Schizoaffective Disorder and schizophrenia in terms of their associated features (such as brain, structural or functional abnormalities, cognitive deficits and genetic factors). Therefore, in this case, planning highly effective therapies is very difficult..

Clinical intervention, therefore, focuses on the possibility of mitigating symptoms and training patients in accepting new standards of living and managing their emotions and self-care and social behaviors.

For the pharmacological treatment of Schizoaffective Disorder, antipsychotics, antidepressants and eutimizers are usually used, while the most indicated psychotherapy for Schizoaffective Disorder would be of the cognitive-behavioral type. In order to implement the latter action, the two pillars of the disorder must be treated.

• On the one hand, the treatment of the mood disorder, helping the patient to detect and work on the depressive or manic symptomatology..

• On the other hand, the treatment of the psychotic-type symptomatology could help to reduce and control delusions and hallucinations.. It is known that conviction in these fluctuates over time and that they can be modified and diminished by cognitive-behavioral interventions. To address delirium, for example, one can help to clarify the way in which the patient constructs his reality and gives meaning to his experiences based on cognitive errors and his life history. This approach can be done in a similar way with hallucinations.