Of interest has been the belated affirmation of the importance of negative symptoms in schizophrenia. Liddle and Barnes, looking objectively at all aspects of schizophrenic thought and behavior, divided them into 4 groups: (1) flat affect, diminution in expressive gestures, latency of response, reduced spontaneous movements, apathy, restricted recreational activities, inability to feel intimate or close, and motor retardation; these negative symptoms, which have resemblances to frontal lobe behavioral syndromes, correlate with reduced blood flow in the frontal lobes and a poor prognosis; (2) disorganization of thought, incoherence, inappropriate affect, illogicality, bizarre behavior, aggression, agitation, and tangentiality; these abnormalities are nonfrontal; (3) hallucinations and delusions that the patient’s mind is being read and that thoughts are being extracted from his mind or being controlled or broadcasted, probably related to temporal lobe function; and (4) suspicion, hostility, and delusions of reference. These authors also found that the 4 syndromes can coexist in various combinations. However valid such subdivisions prove to be, they direct attention to the functional anatomy and physiology of particular neuronal systems in the brain (see further on; also Friston et al).
The behavior of the schizophrenic who experiences these ideas and feelings is correspondingly altered. Early in the course of the illness, normal activities may be slowed or interrupted. No longer does the patient function properly in school or at work. Associates and relatives are likely to find the patient’s complaints and ideas disturbing. The patient may be idle for long periods—preoccupied with inner ruminations—and may withdraw socially. A panic or frenzy of excitement may lead to an emergency ward visit (a high degree of anxiety occurring for the first time in a young person should raise the suspicion of a developing schizophrenia), or the patient may become mute and immobile, that is, catatonic. Attacks of catatonia are infrequent, but lack of will, drive, assertiveness, and motor activity are characteristic of the disease. Ultimately, a deteriorated and dilapidated state occurs, which in the extreme results in an unkempt and malnourished state with which the public unfortunately associates schizophrenia. Individuals of this type roam the streets and live in appalling conditions on the fringes of society where they are subject to the criminal behavior of others.
That schizophrenia of all types carries a significant risk of suicide is not widely appreciated by nonpsychiatry practitioners. In a followup study of schizophrenic and bipolar patients, Winokur and Tsuang found that in each group the proportion of patients who had committed suicide was the same (approximately 10 percent). Suicide occurs most often among young schizophrenic patients living apart from their families who are frightened and overwhelmed by their symptoms and who experience the difficulties of independent existence. Sometimes suicide is a response to terrifying and commanding vocal hallucinations. The schizophrenic patient may also be homicidal, usually acting upon a delusion that he has been wronged or is threatened by the victim. Incidents of this type are unpredictable, but the presence of escalating paranoia should be a warning.
Finally, whether a genuine dementia results from chronic schizophrenia has been much debated over the years. The notion of this type of “dementia praecox” was discarded, but clinicians continue to encounter cases of progressive generalized, and sometimes severe, intellectual impairment in both acute and long-standing cases of schizophrenia; this has been true before and after the modern era of therapeutics. The problem was highlighted by de Vries and colleagues who analyzed what they considered to be a frontotemporal type of dementia in eight patients after 9 to 30 years of schizophrenia; they found minor changes on CT, and frontal or temporal hypoperfusion on functional imaging.