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Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The previously common occurrence of catatonic schizophrenia and catatonic symptoms among schizophrenic patients has diminished sharply; catatonic symptoms now occur more frequently in association with severe affective disorders or with general medical conditions. Catatonia is generally viewed as a peculiar and puzzling syndrome and attracts limited attention. Yet significant catatonic symptoms tend to be present in close to 10% of patients admitted to psychiatric inpatient facilities. The dynamic significance of catatonia can be recognized by considering the original biologic role of catatonia in schizophrenia as an opposite to the paranoid disorder. Szondi viewed catatonia as an attempt at self-healing of the paranoid psychosis with its threatening total expansion, by extreme constriction of the ego. The previously predominant primary association of catatonia with schizophrenia has been eclipsed as neuroleptics have supplanted the endogenous self-healing attempt of catatonia, preventing the occurrence of catatonic symptoms in schizophrenia. Neuroleptics in fact duplicate or approximate the symptoms of catatonia by producing mental immobilization, hypokinesis (parkinsonism and dystonia), hyperkinesis (akathisia), and pernicious catatonia in the modern guise of the neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS). Patients with past or present catatonic symptoms are particularly vulnerable to NMS, and treatment of catatonia requires avoidance of neuroleptics and the use of benzodiazepines or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). The extreme negativism and constriction of consciousness in catatonia suggest a primary role of the frontal lobes, with secondary involvement of the extrapyramidal system and its movement disorders. In an attempt to integrate clinical, psychologic, neuropharmacologic, and neurochemical findings, a modern dynamic neuropsychiatry must appreciate the major significance of catatonia.
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PMID:Catatonia and the neuroleptics: psychobiologic significance of remote and recent findings. 920 76

ECT, in which first experiments were made by the italian Cerletti more than half a century ago, underwent, in the seventies, a definite decline, as it was less and less applied to patients, a result of the influence of anti psychiatry. During the last fifteen years, there has been a legitimate renewal of the interest for this therapy; its indications seem now well codified and its techniques and practises have evolved considerably. Actually, in order to carry out ECT under general anaesthesia, it is necessary to have a pluridisciplinary team, assembling nurses, anaesthesists and psychiatrists that will use more and more effective appliances and adequate anaesthetics. Many of the parameters able to influence ECT's effectiveness are now well known and can be used and adapted according the individual characteristics of each patient. These parameters are: the lateralisation of the electrodes, the intensity of the electric current, the duration of the epileptic fit, the modification that appear in electroencephalography and the frequence of the sessions. According to different investigations, it seems that we must systematically question the medical treatments we associate to ECT. For instance, it is highly recommended not to prescribe with ECT benzodiazepines or antiepileptic mood stabilizers, while antidepressants or neuroleptics do not seem to exert any influence on the effectiveness of the treatment. Some authors think caffeine and triiodothyronin (T3) could have an interesting effect when combined with ECT. As to the indications of shock therapy, they can be now more and more precisely defined making of this treatment an indispensable instrument in the cure of depressive disorders. But ECT is also appropriate in maniac disorders once neuroleptic treatment has failed or else in the very beginning in highly acute cases, and mainly in mixed episodes for which medical treatment is often difficult to adapt. In schizophrenia, ECT can also be prescribed in definite circumstances as catatonia, paranoid states or schizoaffective episodes. Therefore, ECT constitutes a safe and comfortable therapy for the patient since its side effects are essentially characterized by cognitive disorders, and its main contraindications consist of severe cardiovascular diseases. ECT is also an essential tool in some definite cases.
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PMID:[Indications for electroconvulsive therapy]. 933 57

A total of 451 German psychiatric hospitals were asked in 1995 about their use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). As ECT nowadays is well accepted as a therapeutic tool, we wanted to compare our data with data collected in former inquiries in 1977 and 1985 and to acquire information from the new German States. Since 1977, the use of ECT has evidently increased. The psychiatric hospitals that often use ECT are for scattered throughout the whole country. ECT is mainly indicated for febrile catatonia/febrile stupor and depressive stupor, not for schizophrenia. ECT is applied especially when depressive patients are resistant or intolerant of psychopharmacotherapy. The preparation and application correspond to the standards. One focus in the present study was the attitudes of the managing directors towards ECT. Data were collected by open questionnaires. When these data were compared with data from a standardized inquiry of 1985, a similar trend was found regarding positive statements about ECT. Statements are emphasized even more when using open questionnaires. If there is a strong indication for ECT, the basic attitudes of the managing directors toward ECT are very positive. However, its application is in fact much more influenced by social factors than by indication because of negative attitudes by colleagues and nursing staff and political and stereotypic thinking of the general population.
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PMID:[Electroconvulsive therapy in psychiatric clinics in Germany in 1995]. 952 29

Clinical evidence for a dominant mode of inheritance and anticipation in periodic catatonia, a distinct subtype of schizophrenia, suggests that trinucleotide repeat expansions may be involved in the aetiology of this disorder. Since genes with triplet repeats are putative canditates for causing schizophrenia, we have analysed the polymorphic B33 CTG repeat locus on chromosome 3 in 45 patients with periodic catatonia and 43 control subjects. The B33 CTG repeat locus was highly polymorphic, but all alleles in both the patient and control groups had repeat lengths within the normal range. We conclude that susceptibility to periodic catatonia is not influenced by variation at the B33 CTG repeat locus. Nevertheless, that periodic catatonia displays dominant inheritance and anticipation, characteristic of genetic disorders involving trinucleotide repeats, justifies further screening for triplet repeat expansions in this illness.
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PMID:Distribution of the B33 CTG repeat polymorphism in a subtype of schizophrenia. 968 16

The clinical significance of electroencephalographic (EEG) changes in patients with functional psychoses is not yet clearly defined, particularly whether these changes are state indicators or trait indicators. In the present review, the EEG abnormalities in schizophrenia are discussed. In early EEG studies of schizophrenics, the various specific EEG patterns were suggested to be trait indicators, but those findings were not confirmed. The EEG patterns of some patients with catatonic schizophrenia, especially periodic catatonia, were thought to be episode or state indicators, and some of the patients diagnosed as having atypical psychoses in Japan were suggested to show state indicator EEG findings. As the computerized and spectral analyses of EEG have advanced, the contradictory findings of EEG in schizophrenia have been reported, interpreted as 'hyperstable' or 'hypernormal' EEG findings and 'hypofrontal' EEG findings (slow waves in the frontal region). However, no conclusion can be made as to whether these EEG findings are state or trait indicators. On the borderland of functional psychoses, the behavioral changes in temporal lobe epilepsy were described as a trait indicator, and the psychotic states in non-convulsive generalized status epilepticus and acute confusional states were suggested to be state indicators. Further studies of EEG abnormalities in schizophrenia are necessary from multi-dimensional perspectives, including in comparison with the symptomatic psychoses.
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PMID:Electroencephalographic findings in functional psychoses: state or trait indicators? 976 84

In a family study involving 139 probands with chronic DSM-III-R schizophrenia, catatonic type, 83 probands met the criteria for periodic catatonia and 56 probands those for systematic catatonia according to Leonhard. In the systematic catatonias, we found a low morbidity risk of 4.6% in first-degree relatives, an early age at first hospitalization and a high prevalence of affected males. In the light of our recent report of an association between maternal gestational infection and systematic schizophrenia, male fetuses exposed to midgestational infection seem to be particularly at risk of developing systematic catatonia. Periodic catatonia with a family morbidity risk of 26.9% affected both genders with equal frequency and showed no age-at-onset differences between the genders. We found a moderate inverse relationship between early-onset probands and an increased risk in relatives of 24.1% compared to 17.8% in late-onset probands. Our findings substantiate the hypothesis that periodic catatonia is a clinically homogenous disorder with a major gene effect and an age at onset which is to a large extent genetically determined.
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PMID:Gender differences and age of onset in the catatonic subtypes of schizophrenia. 978 Mar 97

This study aimed to test the procedural validity of the psychosis module of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) by comparing it with diagnostic checklists completed by experienced clinicians. Seventy-five subjects were interviewed using the interviewer-administered version of the CIDI. Their clinician(s) then completed diagnostic checklists for DSMIV and ICD10 diagnoses of schizophrenia. Agreement was measured at the diagnostic, criterion and subcriterion levels. The validity standard (diagnostic checklist) was shown to be reliable with interrater agreement between the clinicians for the diagnosis of schizophrenia being excellent (kappa = 0.82 for DSMIV and kappa = 0.71 for ICD10). The agreement between the CIDI and the clinician checklists varied with sensitivities for DSMIV subcriteria ranging from 0.18 (negative symptoms) to 0.93 (bizarre delusions) and specificities ranging from 0.38 (catatonia) to 0.95 (disorganised speech). A similar pattern was found for ICD10 subcriteria: sensitivity varied from 0.19 (neologisms) to 0.90 (persistent delusions) and specificity varied from 0.39 (catatonia) to 0.95 (negative symptoms). The poorest levels of agreement were found for symptoms requiring interviewer judgement. The CIDI showed good agreement with clinician checklist diagnoses when the criteria were based on questions asked of the subjects. When the interviewer was required to make judgement of behaviours, the agreement between the CIDI and the clinician checklists was lower, resulting in overall poor agreement between the CIDI and the clinician checklists. Suggestions for improving the validity of the psychosis module of the CIDI are made.
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PMID:Validity of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) psychosis module in a psychiatric setting. 984 52

In a family study involving 83 probands with periodic catatonia a subtype of DSM IIIR schizophrenia, we reported an age-specific morbidity risk of 26.9% in first-degree relatives with homotypical psychoses and genetic anticipation indicating a possible major gene effect. Paternal transmission was associated with a trend for a younger age at onset in probands compared to that observed in the case of maternal transmission (P = 0.099). If this can be confirmed in a larger sample and then replicated, there would be evidence for the occurrence of a parent-of-origin effect. Such an observation may indicate that a paternally imprinted locus acts on periodic catatonia. Among the non-genetic mechanisms that may modify the penetrance of the disease, paternal affection did lead to a decrease in male offspring (P = 0.007) and maternal affection showed an increased frequency of non-affected male offspring (P = 0.021). We therefore propose that parent-of-origin effects as well as prenatal mortality and psychosocial factors need further investigation in the periodic catatonia subtype of schizophrenia.
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PMID:Parent-of-origin effect and evidence for differential transmission in periodic catatonia. 986 39

The frontal lobes can be subdivided into major functional neuroanatomical domains, which, when injured, surgically destroyed, or reduced in activity or volume, give rise to signature pathological and psychiatric symptomology. A review of case reports and over 50 years of research, including magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, and single photon emission computed tomography scans, indicates that apathy, "blunted" schizophrenia, major depression, and aphasic-perseverative disturbance of speech and thought are associated with left lateral as well as bilateral frontal (and striatal) abnormalities. Impulsiveness, confabulatory verbosity, grandiosity, increased sexuality, and mania are associated with right frontal (as well as bilateral) disturbances. Gegenhalten, catatonia, and disturbances of "will" are indicative of medial frontal injuries. Disinhibitory states and obsessive-compulsive perseverative abnormalities are more frequently observed with orbital frontal lobe dysfunction, including frontal-striatal disturbances. These associations, however, are not always clear-cut as patients with the same diagnosis may demonstrate different symptoms that may be due to an additional abnormality in a different region of the brain. Moreover, as the frontal subdivisions are richly interconnected, and as frontal lobe abnormalities are not always discrete or well localized, a wide array of seemingly divergent waxing and waning symptoms may be manifest, sometimes simultaneously, including manic depression and what has been referred to as the "frontal lobe personality."
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PMID:Frontal lobe psychopathology: mania, depression, confabulation, catatonia, perseveration, obsessive compulsions, and schizophrenia. 1042 Apr 28

This article reviews all recent (1977-1997) reports on catatonic adolescents and summarizes the 9 consecutive cases seen at the authors' institution during the past 6 years. Catatonia occurs infrequently in adolescents (0.6% of the inpatient population), but it appears to be a severe syndrome in adolescents of both sexes. Diagnoses associated with catatonia are diverse, including in this series: schizophrenia (n = 6), psychotic depression (n = 1), mania (n = 1), and schizophreniform disorder (n = 1). Two patients had a previous history of pervasive developmental disorder. In the literature, catatonia was also reported in children with organic condition (e.g., epilepsy, encephalitis). Therapeutic management depends on the specific causes, but several points need to be stressed: (1) the frequency of neuroleptic-induced adverse effects; (2) the potential efficacy of sedative drugs on motor signs; (3) the possible use of electroconvulsive therapy; and (4) the necessity to manage family reactions and fears, which are frequent causes of noncooperation. It is concluded that catatonia is an infrequent but severe condition in young people. While symptomatology, etiologies, complications, and treatment are similar to those reported in the adult literature, findings differ with regard to the female-male ratio and the relative frequencies of associated mental disorders.
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PMID:Case series: catatonic syndrome in young people. 1112 19


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