Paranoid schizophrenia Term Paper
Demographic information and family history
My name is (Student’s Name). I am the second born in a family of three, all being boys. I am 35 years of age. My family lives in Texas in the United States of America. My wife and I have moved to New York City, where we are currently living with our one-year-old daughter. Throughout my family’s growth and development, we have witnessed various occasions that have affected the development of the family. Our last born, James, has had health complications in his teenage. It has not been an easy task to establish the nature of the disorder he has been suffering from for a long time. The root cause of the illness remains unpredictable since he is the only member of our family to have presented with such forms of misfortune.
Both social and emotional withdrawal can be used to characterize his current behavior. It is, however, difficult to assess his psychosocial relationships due to the fact his behavioral patterns are unpredictable. We have sought support from a family psychiatrist. Though the therapeutic measures are still underway, it is worth noting that the aspect of family and relationships has been dramatically affected. Many of our neighbors fail to comprehend the unfortunate situation, but only mere empathy and compassion can be read from the faces of a few who pay a visit to our home. It is my responsibility to watch the progress of my family despite the emergency of world COVID -19 pandemic. Upon numerous clinical tests and psychotherapeutic investigations, it has been realized that James has paranoid Schizophrenia.
Description of disorder
Paranoid Schizophrenia (PS) is a subtype illness of the complex and fascinating psychiatric disorder, Schizophrenia. Various research findings show that paranoid Schizophrenia is a characteristic of patients with less impairment following their neuro-cognitive functions. Furthermore, it has been found out that people suffering from PS tend to alter the apparent emotional salience to social stimuli that are neutral in the environment and on to their bodies. Besides the little data and information for this perception, it can be deduced that cognitive bias is linked to a rise in emotional arousal (Citak et al., 2013). Quantification of subjective emotional arousal is one way of establishing the state of being of an individual suffering from PS. However, comparing both emotionally salient’s and emotionally non-salient individuals can also offer a better understanding of the diagnosis of the disorder.
Researchers have highlighted key findings on some factors that can be examined to offer substantial information on PS. Neuro-cognitive parameters such as intellectual, memory, and executive functioning can also be essential in discovering useful information concerning the disease. Numerous scholarly reviews have demonstrated clear discussions on cognitive differences in paranoid schizophrenic individuals (Citak et al., 2013). Neuro-psychological findings also support the idea of cognitive differences in achieving a better understanding of the collective notion of PS.
Description of symptoms
Paranoid schizophrenia patients can be easily identified within a group of individuals. They pay a different degree of attention to environmental stimuli. Both visual and auditory stimuli are cited to be very crucial in differentiating between a paranoid schizophrenic individual from an average person. An abnormally emotional experience is one of the symptoms that can be shown by a patient suffering from the disease. They can be characterized by defects such as paranoid psychosis, dementia praecox, all of which lead to a more complicated condition in the long term. Hallucination and delusion creations also serve as a supporting credential on the symptoms that paranoid schizophrenic individuals present with (Haralanova et al., 2011). These causes divert associations between various laws of logic hence leading to laden complexes in later days.
Interactions between emotional processes and apparition of persecutory delusions are shown to be at the centre of causing paranoid psychosis, which, when not treated, can lead to paranoid Schizophrenia. Cognitive psychology presents another platform declaring that the aforementioned persecutory delusions lay a framework for relating psychotic social anxiety. The latter is an acute symptom related to emotion and hence causes the patients to wander, searching for explanations and meaning of various stimuli from the environment (Haralanova et al., 2011). Intolerance and ambiguity further cause anxiety that add on to the symptoms of persons suffering from PS. Paranoid Schizophrenia is also characterized by adverse emotional effects such as guilt, hostility, and fear. Due to these emotional feelings, individuals tend to be harsh and intolerable amidst others.
Etiology/causes of the disorder
Paranoid Schizophrenia can be caused by cognitive degradation as well as extrapolated neutral stimuli surrounding an individual. Emotional over-arousal and fears of threat from mesolimbic hyperdopaminergia can also cause the disease in an individual. Salience syndrome and salience dysregulation syndrome also participate in creating the disease in humans (Haralanova et al., 2011). Homeostatic based complications on human metabolism have also been studied and identified as a pivotal contributor to causing PS. Interferon status in a person’s cellular secretions and efficacy portray another lead to the establishment of the infection in a person. In some patients, drug resistance affects the process in which various medicines are administered, thus requiring thorough research to convey the truth.
Assessment and treatment of James
Due to the presence of the various neuro-cognitive domains obtained from the patient’s conversation with the clinical psychologist, the following assessment tests will be carried out.
- 1) 1) Continuous performance test(CPT) to assess the domain of attention
In this assessment test, an individual’s selective and sustained attention is measured by the assessor, who is preferably a clinical psychologist. Depending on the questions that I have asked the patient, James, concerning his situation, one would be able to investigate the patient’s attention span (Citak et al., 2013). Neuro-psychological tests are shown to be useful in unraveling a person’s consistency as well as continuity when subjected to various environmental stimuli. Given the results in hand, it is evident that my patient is suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia. The research article further suggests that the feedback obtained on these patients showed a definite improvement in individuals tested over time.
- 2) 2) Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test( RAVLT) to assess the domain of learning and memory
Assessing the verbal and learning actions of an individual can also help in establishing their rate of learning. The method is widely used since it offers firsthand information to a clinical psychologist. The ability to allow the measurement of the scale of knowledge makes this assessment procedure useful in clinical research activities. The patient, in this case, has been assessed under this domain and realized to be suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia (Citak et al., 2013). The feedback is achieved due to the patient’s delayed remembering and recognition of specific questions during the conversation.
- 3) 3) Benton Judgement of Line Orientation test to assess visuospatial perception.
This assessment tool is effective in the determination of the perception of angulation. About thirty pairs comprising of angled lines are to be matched with corresponding radially aligned eleven line displays. The merit of this test over the others is that it has minimal demands on executive functions (Citak et al., 2013).Recognition of objects by the patient is the crucial aspect the clinical psychologist should consider so as establishing the state of the patient. In this case, it is possible to use this test since the patient complained of fear of threats. Therefore, the patient would be requested to identify the appearance of some objects he perceived in his imaginations or rather hallucinations.
Recommendations and treatment plan
Hospitalization is a good idea that ought to be recommended for James. Although the symptoms that he is showing are not quite stringent, it would be advisable that a paranoid schizophrenic patient is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. In this facility, the patient receives keen attention and treatment measures that aid in improving their health conditions. In the hospital, the patients will benefit from an assessment of subjective emotional arousal. The surroundings are calm with good ventilation to assess the learning and memory domain.
Based on the demographic information about the patient, an appropriate psychiatric hospital must be identified within or close to the Texas city. This ensures that the patients benefit from maximum interaction with the psychologist. Executive functioning will be well evaluated and treated in the hospital. It is also possible for therapeutic sessions to be carried quite often. For instance, this can happen three times in a week and proceed for not more than five weeks. Relevant data and information on the recovery of the patient are documented well in such a facility.
Medications
There are well-researched medications that can be recommended to the patients. For example, in this case, James confirms that he has been using different types of drugs after different clinical therapies. It means that the earlier prescribed drugs have become resistant, thus not helping him to recover from this condition. Some of the recommendations that would be made are to adopt interferon treatments and administration of antipsychotic medication. Medicines such as aripiprazole are effective when used as a monotherapy. The actual dosage should range between 26±4.23mg daily (Haralanova et al., 2011). The administration of this drug should start and continue for about three weeks for the patients to attain the desired recovery.
Moreover, drugs categorized as mood stabilizers and anxiolytics should be avoided since they have reported contributing to the issue of relapse. Accurate dosing strategies are advocated for the medications to avoid instances of recurrence of the disease. Clinical researches assert that there are significant reductions in psychopathological symptomatology. The antipsychotic treatment measures should be considered effective, as postulated by Maruta et al., 2013. Therefore, the treatment plan should comprise the use of a combination of both immuno-active agents to raise the level of efficacy of the prescribed antipsychotic treatment.moreover, credible emphasis should be provided on the use of tranquilizers, antidepressants, and neuroleptics.
Treatment of impairment on the accruing interferon status provides another array of containing the disease. Since James confirmed to be switching between different types of drugs, there is a chance that drug resistance has been affecting his recovery pattern during the treatment period. In the treatment plan, I would pay key attention to cellular immunity. It comprises the different subpopulations of T-helpers and inducers that offer incredible support in the treatment of cognitive dependent disorders. In this plan, a combination of Reamberin and Cycloferon is effective (Maruta et al., 2013).
The treatment pattern thus will entail filtering the use of these medications. Scientifically, Reamberin is an emerging infusion agent that offers antihypoxic, hepato-, nephro, antioxidant, cardio-protective, and detoxifying actions. On the other hand, Cycloferon belongs to a group of low molecular weight interferon inducers. Endogenously, they offer a broad spectrum in the biological activities with an individual through serving as anti-proliferative, antiviral, antitumor, anti-inflammatory as well as immune-modulator agents. They need to be administered for 14.38 ± 3.12 days.
Both behavioral and psychoanalytic therapies are recommended for use in the treatment plan for James. To establish the patient’s level of effect in stimuli from the environment, behavioral therapy that focuses on correspondence to the external surrounding provides a better understanding of the patients’ progress. Psychoanalysis therapy has been described in many research activities. it also provides precise information on the efficacy of the various treatment plans adopted by the clinical psychologist. In the health care facility, the psychiatrist advises keeping a record on the dream analysis of the patient. This technique helps in understanding the dream patterns and also the mental creations that the individual might show.
Altogether, these techniques lead to a better treatment that ought to see that James recover from the long term underpinning condition. In the future, clinical psychologists want to help many clients suffering from a similar disease to recover. It shall also be important to engage in early screening and treatment of diseases that might confront my family to avoid any delayed consequences.
References
Citak, S., Cakici, E., Cakici, M., & Kose, S. (2013). Neuropsychological Assessment in
Patients with Paranoid and Non-Paranoid Schizophrenia. Klinik Psikofarmakoloji Bülteni-Bulletin Of Clinical Psychopharmacology, 23(4), 294-304. https://doi.org/10.5455/bcp.20131213040431
Haralanova, E., Haralanov, S., Beraldi, A., Möller, H., & Hennig-Fast, K. (2011). Subjective
emotional over-arousal to neutral social scenes in paranoid Schizophrenia. European Archives Of Psychiatry And Clinical Neuroscience, 262(1), 59-68. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-011-0227-1
Maruta, N., Rachkauskas, G., Frolov, V., & Vysochin, E. (2013). Interferon Status during the
Treatment of Drug-Resistant Patients with Paranoid Schizophrenia. Neuroscience And Behavioral Physiology, 43(6), 697-699. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-013-9795-z