Schizoaffective Disorder: Difficulty In Distinguishing Illnesses

Written by HealthyPlace.com Staff Writer

Schizoaffective Disorder, with symptoms similar to affective disorders and schizophrenia, is difficult to diagnose.

People with:

• affective disorders usually appear normal between episodes of illness and do not become more seriously disabled with time.
• schizophrenia rarely seem normal, and their condition tends to deteriorate, at least in the early years of the illness.

This distinction is not always as obvious as the description suggests. Emotion and behavior are more fluid and less easy to classify than physical symptoms. Seriously depressed and manic people often have hallucinations and delusions. Mania can be impossible to distinguish from an acute schizophrenic reaction, and psychotic or delusional depression is important enough to rate its own classification by some psychiatrists. Mood changes occur both as symptoms of schizophrenia and as reactions to its devastating effects; for example, depression after a schizophrenic episode (post-psychotic depression) is common and often severe, and it is during this time that a person suffering from schizophrenia is most likely to commit suicide.

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Schizophrenic apathy and an incapacity for pleasure can also be mistaken for depression. Often a diagnosis has to be changed from one kind of major mental disorder to the other. In a recent study of more than 936 people with a severe psychiatric disorder who were hospitalized at least four times in a seven-year period, investigators found that about 25% of those originally given other diagnoses (including bipolar disorder) and 33% of those originally given other diagnoses (including bipolar disorder) had a final diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Signs That May Help Define Schizoaffective as the Diagnosis

• The illness usually begins in early adulthood.
• It is more common in women. A person has difficulty in following a moving object with their eyes.
• A person's rapid eye movement (dreaming) begins unusually early in the night.

However, the research is inadequate and the results have been confused by varying definitions.

next: Schizoaffective Disorder: Positive and Negative Symptoms