Fugue of ideas: associated symptoms, causes and treatment.

A mental disorder that arises especially in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

In psychopathology we find a wide variety of disorders of thought and speech, which mostly affect patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In this article we will learn about one of them, the flight of ideas, a disorder that affects the speed of thought and speech.a disorder that affects the speed of thought and speech.

We can differentiate two planes: thought (ideas) and speech (language). In this disorder, ideas slip away from each other without meaning, first in the person's mind and later in his speech, when he verbalizes them.

Fugue of ideas: characteristics

The flight of ideas is a disorder of the thought, which affects the speed of the thought and is characterized by an increase in the flow of ideas that appear in the mind, causing the person who manifests it to talk faster than usual, jumping from one idea to another constantly.This causes the person who manifests it to talk faster than usual, jumping from one idea to another constantly. This jumping from one idea to another occurs, in general, before the first thought or idea has finished.

In addition, is considered the highest degree of tachypsychia.. Tachypsychia is the pathological acceleration of psychic activity. Unlike tachypsychia, flight of ideas is more intense and aggressive.

In the flight of ideas the patient lacks a fixed direction when speaking; that is to say, the thought shoots and jumps from one idea to another without direction or goal. There are abrupt and illogical thematic changes.

Thus, as we have seen, the flight of ideas is composed of two main elements:

• Massive increase in speed of thought.
• Systemic difficulty in reaching a conclusion.

Related symptoms

The particularities common to all flight of ideas are the following.

1. Disorder and lack of purpose of intellectual processes

It happens that, even when the different ideas that the person has are related in some way, the whole cognition lacks sense and meaning. lacks sense and meaning.

2. Nonsensical associations that have no relationship whatsoever with each other

Predominantly unrelated associations. In addition, the thoughts generated can be very different, the generated thoughts can be very different from one anothereven though they appear continuously in the person's mind or speech.

3. Easily distracted and deviation of topics

The subject with flight of ideas is easily distracted and deviates from the topics he/she is thinking about, influenced by environmental (external) stimuli.

Thus, many of his ideas appear immediately as a result of the visualization of some external image that the subject observes. that the subject observes.

4. Highly visible

The flight of ideas is easily observed through the patient's verbal expression. This massive brainstorming that we discussed above is expressed immediately and triggers the development of incongruent unleashes the elaboration of incongruent speeches..

Causes

The flight of ideas usually appears due to an alteration in the state of mind. In particular, a pathologically euphoric state such as mania (in bipolar disorder type I) or hypomania (in bipolar disorder type II), is the main cause of the flight of ideas.

Thus, this disturbance is typical in bipolar disorders, This alteration is typical in the bipolar disorders mentioned above, but it can also but it can also appear in isolation (although it is not so common). It occurs especially in bipolar disorder type I, where at least one episode of mania appears or has appeared.

In an episode of mania, mood appears disturbed and there is an increase in goal-oriented activity and energy for 1 week (or less if hospitalization has been required).

The flight of ideas can also appear in patients with schizophrenia. Andreasen in 1979 included it in his classification of thought disorders in schizophrenia, when he elaborated the Thought Disorders Scale. However, when making the differential diagnosis, we must properly differentiate the flight of ideas from the psychotic alterations themselves.

Sometimes, the flight of ideas appears together with delusional ideas, but then it is a psychotic disorder.However, this is a different disorder, since the content of the thought in the flight of ideas is preserved (no delirium appears); only its presentation is altered (more accelerated than usual).

Consequences

The flight of ideas is considered a serious disorder that has a very negative impact on the subject; thinking is so accelerated that it completely loses its functionality.

Thus, the person experiences a massive brainstorming inside his or her mind, but these ideas appear overlapped by the generation of the subsequent idea; the person eventually fails to attend to any particular idea. This is the origin of its name, the "ideas that run away" from each other. The person elaborates a large number of thoughts and ideas, but none of them is productive.

On the other hand, the thoughts disappear at the same speed with which they have appeared. The subject jumps from one subject to another without any logical order or congruence. The result, finally, is that the discourse becomes totally incongruent and the subject is unable to focus his or her thoughts on any particular idea or aspect, even if it is simple.

In this way, tasks that require a minimum degree of concentration (for example, talking to someone, or even cooking) become really difficult, since the acceleration of his or her thinking prevents the person from being able to concentrate.

Treatment

The treatment for this kind of alterations depends on the general clinical picture in which it is framed, that is to say, on the disorder that generates that and other alteations.

Bibliographical references:

• Belloch, A.; Sandín, B. And Ramos, F. (2010). Manual of Psychopathology. Volume II. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.
• Vallejo, J. (2011). Introduction to psychopathology and psychiatry. (7th Ed.) Barcelona: Masson.
• American Psychiatric Association (2013). DSM-5. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th Edition). Washington, DC: Author.