Catatonic Schizophrenia
The most uncommon subtype of schizophrenia is catatonia. Although this kind of mental disorder is the rarest of the schizophrenias, it is perhaps the most disturbing to the people inflicted with the illness, and also to the families and friends who encounter the devastating disorder. Whereas paranoid and unorganized schizophrenia are disorders that effect mainly thought and speech behavior, catatonic schizophrenia not only disables speech and thought processes, but it is also a physically disabling illness. Catatonic schizophrenics experience many of the same symptoms as the other types, especially loosely attached thought and speech patterns and paranoia. Added to these symptoms, catatonic schizophrenics also experience extreme shifts between excited and withdrawn, stuporous motor behavior. These opposing states of physical activity, and the pronounced motor gestures are what characterize catatonic schizophrenia.
In one experiment involving 250 patients, all with catatonic schizophrenia, 110 fall into the predominantly withdrawn class, 67 experience primarily excited symptoms, and 73 are considered mixed between behaving stuporous and excited (Morrison 1973).
The most common state of catatonia, stupor, is characterized by a loss of all animation, and motionless, rigid, unchanging positions. People in a catatonic stupor will become sometimes become mute and stare into space, remaining still for sometimes hours or days, even until the hands and feet become blue and swollen (Carson, et al. 454). Trying to awaken a patient out of a catatonic stupor is virtually useless. Usually he or she will not acknowledge their surroundings, and will not respond to stimuli. Although during the stupor seems to be completely "out there" and unconnected to reality, some patients can even retell the accounts of the stupor and the reason, and what they were thinking at the time. One patient who remained motionless with one hand froze in the air, parallel to the ground, came out of the stupor explaining that the forces of the world were battling on the back of his hand. He was deathly afraid that if he tilted his hand he would give the evil force an unfair advantage (Carson, et al. 454).
Some withdrawn patients are highly susceptible to suggestion and will obey commands or imitate actions, a condition known as echopraxia, or mimic phrases, also known as echolalia. Ordinarily, patients in a catatonic stupor will refuse to comply with even the slightest request and pay no attention to bowel or bladder control. Facial expressions are typically vacant, and skin texture appears waxy.
Schizophrenia has multiple symptoms; according to the World of Health Organization, these symptoms include “delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior [as well as depressive behavior].” Monomania
Misery loves company and in Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener", Bartleby exhibits traits of depression and catatonic schizophrenia as defined in the DSM-IV; however the narrator's other employees also show symptoms of catatonia either influenced by Bartleby or by Melville's own mental state. The theme of mental disorder is prominent throughout the text and a close analysis of specific passages in concordance with the DSM-IV will first reveal how Bartleby exemplifies these mental disorders and secondly show to what extent the entire story serves to personify them.
Imagine you are in a boring lecture and you start to drift to sleep, usually you can manage to force yourself to wake up. This may be common occurrence but try to imagine falling asleep while driving or walking. These situations seem more rare. A narcoleptic’s body doesn’t care what it is doing when it goes into these paralyzed sleeping episodes. The sudden overwhelming feeling drives the narcoleptic person to fall asleep. One type of episode that they experience is called cataplexy, which is usually caused by some stressful situation or other common activities such as laughing or running (6). During these periods the person suffers from muscle weakness and paralysis. Although the person appears to be sleeping, they are still conscious, but unable to move. They can hear and feel but cannot react to stimulation. For this reason narcolepsy is a very dangerous condition to have without receiving treatment because serious vehicle accidents can result as well as an general inability to succeed in school (6).
Be observed in at least 15% of the normal population. This showed that hypnosis was not confined to hysterical or neurotical subjects that Charcots work was stating.
Schizophrenia has three main subtypes. Paranoid schizophrenia is when the person believes someone is out to get them. Disorganized schizophrenia is people who do silly strange behaviors, inappropriate emotions, and have messed up speech patterns. They do a thing called a word salad, when they talk with bunches of words randomly thrown together. Catatonic schizophrenia is when the person gets in a position and stays in that exact position for a long time (like hours). This is very and the medication for it is good.
Narcolepsy has been above looked for years beforehand knowing a patient has the illness, it is a quickly producing awareness and is continually altering people and their families lives. With nap materializing to be not merely the ultimate pastime, but additionally a survival imperative, the earth of nap scutiny is quite large, bragging countless disparate spans of study. By scrutinizing phenomena like nap disorders neurobiologists can yearn to comprehend the mechanisms of normative nap, in supplement to perfecting treatment for suffers. Narcolepsy is one such disorder that affects an approximated 250, 000 or 1 in 2000 Americans; comparable numbers are approximated for Parkinson's or countless sclerosis (mayo-foundation). An comprehensive, nevertheless oftentimes misdiagnosed illness (fewer than 50, 000 are cognizant of their condition), narcolepsy can be delineated by chronic daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, nap paralysis, and hypanogic hallucinations (rare-disease). The last three of the tetrad of symptoms additionally transpire in non-narcoleptic individuals; nap episodes are the main determinant in diagnosis. Merely 20 to 25 percent of narcoleptics tolerate from all four symptoms (mayo-foundation). This paper has countless goals, all of that involve elucidating the illness and its symptoms in disparate contexts. In order to do this nap will main be elucidated in a slight detail, pursued by a biological and psychological treatment of narcolepsy. Scutiny of narcolepsy and its implications for the upcoming displays steps to be grabbed in order to garner a larger understanding this particular brain/behavior relationship.
Many people who suffer from psychological problems are often troubles with insomnia as a side effect because sleep requires an untroubled mind. Former United States Marshal, Teddy Daniels, believes he was assigned to find a missing person from a mysterious mental institution, Aschecliffe. Unfortunately, he suffers from a delusional disorder and is really a patient of the institution, known as Andrew Laeddis. He is considered a violent but intelligent patient who re-enacts a fake life that he has created for himself in which he believes that he is a detective trying to locate Andrew Laeddis, who supposedly murdered his wife. One night, as Teddy lies in the room with the other men he believes to be working with, he thinks to himself that “he couldn’t sleep. He listened to the men snore and huff and inhale and exhale, some with faint whistles and heard some talk in their sleep…Dolores. Everything he’d ever needed, and now it had a name” (Lehane 199&204). Although Teddy is not diagnosed with insomnia, he has some symptoms to suggest he struggles with a sleeping problem. The difficulty with insomnia is it cannot be cured with medication and requires effort from the patie...
According the fourth edition diagnostic manual of mental disorders (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), the category psychotic disorders (Psychosis) include Schizophrenia, paranoid (Delusional), disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, residual type. Other clinical types include Schizoaffective Disorder, Bipolar Affective Disorder/Manic depression, mania, Psychotic depression, delusional (paranoid) disorders. These are mental disorders in which the thoughts, affective response or ability to recognize reality, and ability to communicate and relate to others are sufficiently impaired to interfere grossly with the capacity to deal with reality; the classical and general characteristics of psychosis are impaired reality testing, hallucinations, delusions, and illusions. Mostly, these are used as defining features of psychosis even if there are other psychotic symptoms that characterise these disorders (L. Bortolotti, 2009).
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder which disables the brain and leaves a person feeling psychotic. A person diagnosed with this disorder may see or hear things that other people don’t. They may also think that, if they are talking with someone, the other person is controlling his or her mind or is planning to hurt them in some way. This will result in the schizophrenic person withdrawing from any social interaction, or becoming very agitated.
There are many disorders throughout the world that affect people on a daily basis. They are life altering and life changing. They affect how a person can function on a normal level of life. This, in itself, is an interesting way of viewing the disorder, but it truly is the way that schizophrenia is viewed. The term normal is in its self a complex concept, but to understand that for the purpose of schizophrenia; normal is anything that deviates from the socially accepted way of conducting one’s self. The person affected by this disorder is drifting away from reality and, at the same time, drifting away from who they have been their whole life.
In 1809, physician John Haslam published an account of what he considered “A form of insanity”. Haslam described many symptoms that are relevant to modern day schizophrenia including delusions of grandeur and hallucinations. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, a German psychiatrist named Emil Kraepelin expanded on Haslam’s views and gave a more accurate description of schizophrenia as we know it today. Kraeplin started off by combining terms including different types of insanity under one term: Catatonia, and delusions of grandeur and persecution: paranoia. Kraepelin also separated dementia praecox from manic depressive illness, or bipolar disorder (Barlow, P.470).
For example, some forms of schizophrenia are accompanied by periods of complete immobility, whereas others may involve weird facial grimaces and odd gesturing. Attention is al...
Cartwright, R.D. (1978) A primer on Sleep and Dreaming. Massachusetts : Addison - Wesley, Publishing, Company
The phenomenon of sleep paralysis can be a frightening experience: many who suffer can feel tremendous anxiety and fear, even though occurrences are considered as harmless as a bad dream. The disorder does not discriminate on the basis of race or gender, but age sometimes is a factor. Treatment for sleep paralysis is limited; in general, doctors treat the disorders linked to sleep paralysis such as sleep apnea or narcolepsy. Sleep paralysis continues to be one of the many mysteries of the human brain, which science will continue to investigate.
You are lying in bed taking a much-needed nap. You have had a long day and this little refresher is just what you need. You are slowly becoming awake and aware of what is going around you. You can hear someone in the kitchen cooking and through the open window by your bed you can hear the sounds of the kids of the neighborhood jumping rope and playing hand games. You can even hear Old Mrs. Jones yelling at Little Johnny for running all over her flowers. You have been sleeping for about an hour and you feel that it is about time to get up. So you open your eyes, or at least you think you do. For reason some they are not open. So you think to yourself, "That is odd, I thought I mentally told my eyes to open?" So you try again, and this time you hear your voice in your head say, "Eyes open;" but again nothing happens. Now you think maybe you are really out of it, and that you must be extremely tired and just need to rub your eyes a little to get them moving. So next you try to move your arm, only it is stuck. Then you realize that your entire body is stuck. You think that this situation has to be unreal. You are awake; you have to be. You can obviously think to yourself, and you can hear everything that is going on inside and outside, but why are you not moving? You try to open your mouth and call for help, but you cannot do that either. You are completely paralyzed! Then you start to think this that is some sort of nightmare-and it is, except it is very much real. You are experiencing sleep paralysis.