Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgements
- 1 Child and adolescent psychopharmacology at the turn of the millennium
- 2 Developmental psychopharmacology
- 3 Clinical aspects of child and adolescent psychopharmacology
- 4 Depression
- 5 Bipolar mood disorders: diagnosis, etiology, and treatment
- 6 Schizophrenia and related psychoses
- 7 Obsessive–compulsive disorder
- 8 Anxiety disorders
- 9 Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
- 10 Pervasive development disorder
- 11 Aggressive behavior
- 12 Adolescent substance use disorder
- 13 Tic disorders and Tourette's syndrome
- 14 Eating disorders and related disturbances
- 15 Medical psychiatric conditions
- Index
6 - Schizophrenia and related psychoses
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface and acknowledgements
- 1 Child and adolescent psychopharmacology at the turn of the millennium
- 2 Developmental psychopharmacology
- 3 Clinical aspects of child and adolescent psychopharmacology
- 4 Depression
- 5 Bipolar mood disorders: diagnosis, etiology, and treatment
- 6 Schizophrenia and related psychoses
- 7 Obsessive–compulsive disorder
- 8 Anxiety disorders
- 9 Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
- 10 Pervasive development disorder
- 11 Aggressive behavior
- 12 Adolescent substance use disorder
- 13 Tic disorders and Tourette's syndrome
- 14 Eating disorders and related disturbances
- 15 Medical psychiatric conditions
- Index
Summary
Overview
The onset of a schizophrenic illness during childhood or adolescence often seems disastrous for the patient and the family. Management of the acute phase of the psychosis presents a true psychiatric emergency, usually requiring the services of a multidisciplinary team on an inpatient unit. A developmentally appropriate therapeutic milieu, i.e., one providing a school-based and structured program in the company of peers, is preferred to placing the patient on an adult inpatient service.
Optimal management requires the successful differentiation of schizophrenia from a number of other psychotic and nonpsychotic disorders with similar presentations, but this may be extremely difficult in the acute situation, and it is important to reassess the initial diagnostic formulation in light of the course of the illness and treatment response.
Some of the diagnostic difficulties arise from the current noseology. First, schizophrenia is spoken of as a unitary disorder, when it is more likely to be a conglomerate of various phenomenologically related syndromes, each having a different and complex etiologic pathway. Secondly, diagnostic criteria developed for adults have been applied across the life cycle, with only minor allowances made for developmental influences on the presentation of the important symptoms. Thirdly, there continues to be debate and uncertainty about the delineation of early-onset schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder, and the higher functioning pervasive developmental disorders (PDDs). Final clarification of these issues awaits an understanding of etiologies.
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- Information
- Practical Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology , pp. 134 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002
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