- Hi everyone, and welcome back
to the Living Well With Schizophrenia channel.
In today's video, I'm going to be discussing
what exactly Schizoaffective disorder is.
In a lot of my videos,
I tend to use Schizoaffective disorder
and schizophrenia interchangeably,
but I'm going to be talking about
the difference between these two in today's video
and what exactly Schizoaffective disorder is.
I get a lot of people asking me
to describe more of the mood disorder
or the bipolar side of Schizoaffective.
And so I'm going to be talking more about
kind of the spectrum of psychotic disorders
that involves bipolar and schizophrenia in today's episode.
But first, if you're new here,
my name is Lauren and I live with Schizoaffective disorder,
and I make videos about what it's like
living with Schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
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Okay, so diving right into it,
what is Schizoaffective disorder?
So Schizoaffective disorder is basically
the combination of schizophrenia
and a major mood disorder such as bipolar or depression.
Okay, so starting off,
I'm going to describe a bit about what schizophrenia entails
and what the symptoms of schizophrenia are.
So there're positive and negative symptoms.
And positive symptoms include things like hallucinations,
delusions, paranoid thought, and those sorts of things.
And then, the negative symptoms include
more of like the kind of depressive symptoms.
So lack of energy,
lack of motivation,
lack of pleasure,
and it's kinda like the removal of behaviors.
There're also some cognitive symptoms
that occur in schizophrenia
because it is primarily a thought disorder,
whereas bipolar on the other hand or depression
are primarily a mood disorder.
And so bipolar is kind of,
it's commonly thought that people with bipolar
have these extreme mood fluctuations very sporadically,
but that's not really what bipolar is typically.
Typically, it's more prolonged periods
of either mania or depression.
So mania is when a person has really elevated mood
and they have more impulsive behavior
like overspending or gambling
or stuff like that, hypersexuality,
and everything's just kind of an overdrive for them,
and they're really kind of just amped up.
Whereas the depressive side of bipolar
and of depression is more like
lack of energy,
lack of motivation to do things,
lack of interest in things
you otherwise would have found interesting or engaging,
feeling sad mood.
And that's kind of the extremes of bipolar disorder
and also the lows of depression.
And so bipolar disorder typically is characterized
by at least one week of mania or
episode requiring hospitalization,
and two weeks of depression.
So that's kind of the diagnostic criteria
for diagnosing bipolar.
Now, when we're talking about Schizoaffective disorder,
it's kind of a combination of both of these things,
of schizophrenia and of the major mood disorder,
whether it's bipolar or depression.
Now, before getting too much into Schizoaffective disorder,
as it relates to bipolar and depression,
or bipolar and schizophrenia,
I think it's really important to kind of discuss
the spectrum of psychotic disorders.
So 50% of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder
have some sort of psychotic features
attached to their symptoms and their diagnosis.
And this is often referred to as
bipolar with psychotic features.
And that's kind of that one end of the continuum,
of the psychosis spectrum.
And then at the other end is schizophrenia.
And so within this spectrum
of psychotic disorders/ Schizoaffective disorder,
which is kind of again, a combination of both of them,
it's kind of like,
there's a bit of a degree of anticipated better prognosis
as you get closer to the bipolar side,
because people with bipolar
typically have more prolonged periods of recovery
than people with schizophrenia do.
And so, it's typically thought that people with bipolar
have a little bit better of a diagnosis
than people with Schizoaffective,
and people with Schizoaffective
have a little bit better of a prognosis
than people with schizophrenia.
But this is not at all hard and fast,
and the occurrence of symptoms can be vastly different
regardless of your diagnosis,
and can have varying degrees of effect on an individual,
again, regardless of your diagnosis.
So now some people might be wondering,
what is the difference between
bipolar with psychotic features
and Schizoaffective disorder?
Good question, there's really not a lot of difference.
The main difference is that,
bipolar with psychotic features,
they're experiencing the psychotic features
at the same time as a mood disturbance,
so either mania or depression.
Whereas Schizoaffective disorder,
the criteria for being diagnosed
with Schizoaffective disorder
is that you experience psychosis or psychotic symptoms
without any mood episode present.
So for me, my kind of journey of diagnosis
began with being diagnosed with depression
when I was first experiencing symptoms,
because that was what I was presenting with the most.
Then it kind of graduated
to being diagnosed with bipolar disorder
because I was beginning to display characteristics of mania
as well as depression.
And then I began to have psychotic symptoms,
so I was diagnosed with bipolar with psychotic features.
And then the psychotic symptoms began to persist
without any depression or mania present,
and so my diagnosis was changed to Schizoaffective disorder,
which it currently is now.
And that feels accurate for me.
It feels like something that fits
how I perceive my symptoms.
Coming back to the kind of spectrum though,
between bipolar and schizophrenia,
it's really interesting to note that there're very similar
brain abnormalities shown on MRI scans
in people with bipolar with psychotic features,
and people with schizophrenia,
and people with Schizoaffective disorder.
And so it must be something similar
in terms of being on the same sort of spectrum of illness,
because the same brain abnormalities
are found in both illnesses.
The brain abnormalities are more marked
in people with schizophrenia,
but there are still similarities along the spectrum.
It's also interesting that treatment with medication
is very, very similar for people with schizophrenia
and Schizoaffective.
The treatment for both of those is practically identical.
The only exception being that for me anyway,
I'm usually only on antipsychotics,
but when I'm experiencing a mood disturbance,
I generally I'm added a mood stabilizer as well.
So that's really the only real difference between
schizophrenia and Schizoaffective treatment.
And it's really interesting that
bipolar with psychotic features
can also be treated with antipsychotics.
So again, that's kind of hinting at
something similar between these illnesses on the spectrum.
Now, I kinda walked you through my diagnostic journey
in terms of moving from depression to bipolar,
to bipolar with psychotic features,
to Schizoaffective disorder.
And you may be somewhere along that journey
of proper diagnosis as well,
but what I really want to convey is that the label
and the diagnosis doesn't really matter
so much as it matters that you are really aware of
the symptoms that you're experiencing,
and you're really working to convey that
as effectively as possible with your doctor
or with your psychiatrist because,
we've shown that it's a spectrum,
so it really doesn't matter where you fall
along that spectrum,
so long as your symptoms are being properly managed
and properly addressed,
I think that's the most important part.
Okay, so basically to summarize,
bipolar, schizophrenia and Schizoaffective disorder
all lie within the same sort of continuum or spectrum.
And Schizoaffective disorder
is defined as being a combination of both schizophrenia
and a major mood disorder such as depression
or bipolar disorder.
So I think that there is
kind of like a growing consciousness around this idea
of the spectrum between bipolar and schizophrenia.
And I think that there is increasingly more dialogue
around psychosis as a condition,
as opposed to separating them into bipolar,
Schizoaffective, and schizophrenia.
And there's kind of more of a approach
of it being a continuum of psychosis,
and a continuum of psychosis as a brain disease
rather than as these individual mental illnesses.
And so it's going to be interesting to kind of see
where things go in the next 10, 20 years or so,
as the Psychiatric Community begins to kind of re-examine
the criteria for each of these diagnoses.
So I'm really interested to hear your thoughts as well.
Would you be more comfortable
with the Psychiatric Community kind of approaching this
more as a continuum of psychotic disorders
and just understanding that people fall somewhere
along that spectrum,
or do you prefer having a specific diagnosis
like bipolar with psychotic features,
or Schizoaffective disorder, or schizophrenia?
Let me know what your thoughts are,
or what you're comfortable with,
or what your thoughts are on the whole topic.
So thank you so much for watching this video,
I hope you liked it or found it helpful in some way,
or you learnt something new.
And if you did, please make sure to like it.
And also don't forget to subscribe to our channel,
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And just one more reminder,
if you would like to support the creation
of future videos like this one,
please make sure to check out our Patreon page.
The link is in the description below.
So thank you so much for watching
and as always wishing you and your loved ones good health.
See in the next video, bye.
(cool guitar music)