Schizophrenia is a mental illness characterized by a distortion of thought and perception, which usually results in delusions, hallucinations, speeches, and behavioral changes. Since hallucinations and delusions in children are generally less elaborate than in adults, such as seeing people, one should try to understand whether they are actually hallucinations or just games.
This disease usually occurs between the ages of 10 and 45, being very rare in childhood. Although there are some reports of the disease in children under 5 years of age, these cases are very rare and symptoms become more apparent during adolescence.
- Schizophrenia usually begins at a prepsychotic stage.
- When negative symptoms of the disease appear.
- Such as social isolation.
- Disruptive behaviors.
- Deterioration of personal hygiene.
- Tantrums or loss of interest in school or work.
- For example.
- When the disease appears before age 12.
- It is strongly associated with behavioral problems and the prognosis is worse.
- They are more likely to lose their normal functions and develop emotional disorders.
- Intellectual and linguistic changes.
When schizophrenia occurs before age 12, the child begins to develop behavioral problems. Generally, it shows resistance to adapt to society, isolates itself, assumes strange behaviors and, in some cases, also manifests a delay in neuropsychomotor development. In addition to cognitive decline, there is also a deficit of attention, learning and abstraction.
As the child grows into adulthood, other characteristic symptoms of the disease may appear, which are subdivided into positive and negative. Positive symptoms are most visible in the stages of acute decompensation of the disease, and the negative symptoms are those resulting from the evolution of schizophrenia itself, from the effects of antipsychotics and side medications to the positive symptoms themselves.
In the classic model, schizophrenia can be divided into 5 types
However, schizophrenia defined in DSM V no longer includes five types of schizophrenia, with subtypes considered associated. Thus, the subtypes mentioned above are not watertight and the person may, at some point in the course of the disease, present a clinical picture that is identified with another type of schizophrenia or have symptoms of another subtype.
Learn, in more detail, how to identify the different types of schizophrenia.
Diagnosis of schizophrenia is not a simple diagnosis, and in children it can be even more difficult to differentiate it from other conditions, especially bipolar affective disorder, and symptoms need to be reevalued over time.
Schizophrenia is incurable and treatment is usually done with the goal of reducing symptoms as well as relapses. Antipsychotics are usually prescribed, however, there are few studies on these medications in childhood.
Haloperidol is a drug that has been used for several years and remains a good choice for the treatment of psychosis in children. In addition, risperidone and olanzapine have also been used in the treatment of childhood psychosis, with good results.