Introduction
Psychological disorders exhibit various symptoms. In some cases, the symptoms are obvious by observation while in others they are not detectable. A patient may conceal her symptoms with substance abuse and in some cases, the substances abuse tendencies is in it a symptom of an underlying mental disorder. There are various factors that have been identified as causes or stimulators of various conditions. In this research paper, we shall evaluate a case titled Diana Di in an effort to evaluate her symptoms and propose a possible diagnosis. The paper shall cover the diagnostic features, differential diagnosis, cultural, gender and social economic environment and the treatment methods.
Diagnostic features
Diana Di is a sample case of a patient by the name Diana Miller. She was committed to a long-term treatment in a psychiatric hospital following an attempted suicide at her home while the parents were away on vacation. She was tractable and had a below average performance record in school. At 12, her personality quickly shifted from cheerful and outgoing to demanding, rebellious and sullen, tearful and depressed. She then took to clubs and loved going out to dance and have fan with strangers. She would overdo everything including having sexual contacts with strangers in exchange for drinks. She made her first suicide attempt at the age of 17 when she cut her wrist severally which led to her first hospitalization.
She was then referred to an intensive therapy twice in a week. Her sessions were always full of complaints in regards to her parents. Her symptom worsened and she was afraid to even visit the doctor alone. Her drinking habit intensified and she started taking 40 mg/day Valium. She became obsessed with calories and demanded that her mother arrange her food in a certain way. Her psychiatrist recommendation for her to consider going for rehabilitation were fruitless and instead, she increased her Valium intake to 80 mg/day.
Diana Miller exhibits signs of a mental disorder. A critical observation on her condition reveals that she led a normal life up until her teenage age when her life took a different turn. It is at this juncture that she started abusing drugs, promiscuity and contemplating suicide. This sudden turn in personality from a fairly normal lifestyle to an ineffective and impossible to deal with individual is consistent with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia symptoms can be grouped into three categories including positive symptoms, negative symptoms and psychomotor symptoms.
Symptoms
These are referred to as pathological excesses or unexpected additions to an individual behavior. They may include delusions, disorganized thinking, inappropriate affect and heightened perceptions. As noted in the case, Diana Miller felt that the parent’s actions were always against her interest and she always complained about them at the therapies. She expected 100% attention from them and nothing less. The patients also show loss of volition and inability to follow their goals. This is demonstrated by the fact that Diana dropped out of school twice. She was not able to follow the school routine and instead opted to run away with her boy friend. The patient exhibited signs of social withdrawal, she could not stand being in school alongside other students and thus she chose a solitary life where she sought happiness from alcohol, drugs and promiscuity (Gattaz et al., 1987).
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Diagnosis takes place if a person has been experiencing the symptoms for more than six months. In the case under review, the patient has been delusional for some time and has not been active socially. She is not able to take care of herself as her delusion hinders her movement even to visit the psychiatrist. Researchers have attempted to differentiate the symptoms between type I and type II schizophrenia. Type I is observed to be dominated by positive symptoms while type II is observed to be dominated by negative symptoms. There are various studies that have been carried out to determine the causes of schizophrenia. Inherited genetic factors are known to be carried by some patients and they later develop into the disorder when one is under stress especially during the late adolescent ages or early adulthood. This characteristic is consistent with our case as Diana developed the condition at the said age (Lobato et al., 2001).
Differential Diagnosis
Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder exhibits similar characteristics. A notable difference in that schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder while bipolar is a disorder that mostly affects the moods. Owing to the similarities in the symptoms, there are high chances of misdiagnoses. In order to differentiate between the two, in addition to the observations of the symptoms, magnetic resonance imaging scans are as well used to identify a distinctive feature between the two disorders. The observable differences include the grey matter volumes, the size of the neuropathological, and cortical thickness. Although the two diseases are different, owing to the similarities in some of the symptoms, the treatment approaches are similar (Alexis et al., 2013).
Cultural/Gender and Social/Environmental Factors
There are various factors that affect the prevalence of the condition.
3 Paradigm & Treatment Methods
Conclusion
References
Gattaz, W. F., In Hafner, H., In Janzarik, W., Central Institute of Mental Health., & Universität Heidelberg. (January 01, 1987). Search for the causes of schizophrenia: Symposium : Papers.
Lobato, M. I., Belmonte-De-Abreu, P., Knijnik, D., Teruchkin, B., Ghisolfi, E., & Henriques, A. (2001). Neurodevelopmental risk factors in schizophrenia. (Brazilian journal of medical and biological research, 34, 2, 155-163.)
Alexis G. Bruno E., Josselin H., (14 Oct 2013). Gene × environment interactions in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: evidence from neuroimaging. Frontiers in Psychiatry 4: 136
