OBJECTIVES: The aim of our study was to assess clinical presentation of early-onset schizophrenia spectrum disoders (EO-SSD), the time to first improvement and efficacy associated with selected atypical (AAPs) and typical (TAPs) antipsychotics, as well as two main side effects - weight gain and treatment-emergent extrapyramidal symptoms (EPSs) during the treatment in patients with EO-SSD. METHODS: This was a systematic chart review of all patients receiving routine clinical care in our department, with selected AAPs (risperidone, olanzapine, ziprasidone, quetiapine and clozapine) and TAPs (haloperidol, perphenazine and sulpiride), for schizophrenic psychoses, between 1997 and 2007. During this period, our review identified 173 patients (85 males, 88 females; mean age 15.8±1.6 years); their treatment included 297 treatment trials. Data on premorbid adjustment, prodromal symptoms and psychopathology at admission, as well as comorbidity were evaluated based on the patients' medical records. The time to first improvement could be estimated in 258 treatment trials; of these, 195 (76%) comprised AAPs and 63 (24%) TAPs. The time to first improvement was assessed in agreement with the methodology established for retrospective studies as the number of treatment days prior to the first record of improvement...

Multimodality MR imaging of pathological changes in schizophrenia Aim: To prove structural changes of the neocortex and white matter of the brain indicating connectivity disorder in early phases of schizophrenia. Material and methods: A prospective monocentric study comparing a cohort of patients after the first episode of schizophrenia (on average 15.6 days after the initial hospitalization) with a control group of healthy persons. Probands were examined using a complex MRI protocol. Twenty-six patients and twenty-four healthy persons were examined in total. Three dimensional T1 and T2 data and DWI data were analyzed using TBSS FA, FBA a surface- based morphometry. Results: Large areas of dispersively decreased FA were found in patients compared to control group using TBSS. Several fixels of decreased FD metric were found using FBA in the anterior commissure of patients and one sporadic fixel of decreased FDC metric was found in frontal white matter of the brain. No statistically significant areas of cortical surface area and cortical thickness differences were found using SBM. Conclusions: Large areas of decreased microstructural integrity of the white matter of the brain were found. However, it was not possible to specify the nature of its corruption using FBA. Our findings indicate the crucial role of...

The Nogo-A protein belongs among the most important regulatory molecules in the brain, regulating development of neuronal and glial cells, axon guidance and adult synaptic plasticity. Although it has been studied mainly as an obstacle to axon regeneration after CNS injury, it plays a role in many pathological conditions, including neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. This work offers a literature review of the current knowledge about functions of Nogo-A and related proteins, and then recapitulates the results of experiments focused on the impact on decreased expression of Nogo-A on behavior in a transgenic rat model. The most important finding is that the Carousel Maze performance, tapping higher cognitive functions such as cognitive coordination and cognitive flexibility, is remarkably impaired in this model, while other cognitive functions, such as spatial navigation and both spatial and non-spatial memory are spared in the Nogo-A deficient rats. The results are discussed in the context of a hypothesis linking Nogo-A mutations or abnormal expression to human schizophrenia. We conclude that the Nogo-A deficient rats constitute a very promising animal model of schizophrenia and deserve further attention. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

This diploma thesis describes the current state of social field work in the Fokus organization and their experience with the involvement of a peer worker. Another aim was to define key concepts, to formulate possible recommendations. The empirical part of this work focuses on the specific experience of Fokus with the involvement of the peer worker through structured interviews, case studies, proceedings and practical experience gained through work at Fokus.

This thesis deals with a multidisciplinary approach to clients suffering from schizophrenia. The main aim is to reflex the multidisciplinary approach to schizophrenic clients, appealing to social work and having respect to ethical principles of participating branches. The work includes chapters that are necessarily coherent to this topic. These are mainly the social work in the context of schizophrenia, specifics of schizophrenia, the structure of the multidisciplinary team, team work and all ethical aspects arising out of team work and individual experts' work. This thesis tries to link up theoretical and practical knowledge, mainly by means of casuistry and practical observations.

In thesis on the topic "Social work methods used in clients with mental disorders and their effectiveness" I focus on the terminology. I am going to learn basic information about selected mental disorders such as schizophrenia, affective disorders, specifically bipolar disorder, neurotic disorders, specifically obsessive-compulsive disorder and lastly personality disorders, namely borderline personality disorder. Next, I am going to focus on the treatment possibilities of mental disorders, where I speak about the prevention and social worker approach. I continue with social survey and treatment&care for people with mental disorders. Finally, I am going to write about social work methods. The main goal of my thesis was to find what methods of social work are used at work with clients suffering mental disorders. Also if in practice are any methods used and what kind of method is used most often. My next goal was to find out the effectiveness of the methods used in social work. I used survey by a questionnaire. The survey contains 11semi-open questions. After that I concluded that methods of social work are provided to clients with mental disorders and all methods of social work for the mentally ill are used. That means work with an individual, family, group, community, psychiatric rehabilitation,...

This thesis is inspired by the theory of social construction of mental illness. The work is a case study that uses the metaphor of the story and narrative analysis of interviews examining the individual human experience with mental illness. My goal was to find out what makes us understand the disease and how this understanding can be used in a daily struggle with the disease. In the theoretical part, I drew from documented knowledge about mental illness, particularly for depressive disorder and schizophrenia simplex. Then I presented the narrative approach as a legitimate way of exploring understanding of lived experience. The practical part is implemented as a case study and through narrative analysis provides interesting insight into the way of understanding and coping with mental illness a person who has the expertise and also suffer from mental illness. Key words: mental illness, social construction, narrative, narrative approach, the dominant medical discourse, depression, schizophrenia simplex, stigma, coping strategies.

This thesis employs data-mining techniques and modern information and communication technology to develop methods which may improve efficiency of prevention oriented telemedical programs. In particular this thesis uses the ITAREPS program as a case study and demonstrates that an extension of the program based on the proposed methods may significantly improve the program's efficiency. ITAREPS itself is a state of the art telemedical program operating since 2006. It has been deployed in 8 different countries around the world, and solely in the Czech republic it helped prevent schizophrenic relapse in over 400 participating patients. Outcomes of this thesis are widely applicable not just to schizophrenic patients but also to other psychotic or non-psychotic diseases which follow a relapsing path and satisfy certain preconditions defined in this thesis. Two main areas of improvement are proposed. First, this thesis studies various temporal data-mining methods to improve relapse prediction efficiency based on diagnostic data history. Second, latest telecommunication technologies are used in order to improve quality of the gathered diagnostic data directly at the source.

Schizophrenia is a severe neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by positive, negative and cognitive symptoms with poor functional outcomes, placing an enormous burden on the individual, caregivers and society. Although deficits in cognition are an integral part of the disease and the best predictor of functional outcomes, there is as yet no established treatment addressing them. Avoidance of a hidden place on a continuously rotating arena (Carousel) requires cognitive control and is a rodent model of cognitive coordination of information from dissociated spatial frames, which is impaired in acute pharmacological and neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia. Cognitive training on the Carousel during adolescence alleviates adult cognitive deficit in a neurodevelopmental model of schizophrenia and improves neural coordination (oscilations in the beta and gamma band), which is thought to be necessary for cognition. We examined if cognitive training during adolescence eliminates the deficit in neuronal coordination observed in adult rats after acute systemic NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 (0.15 mg/kg). During adolescence, rats were either trained in spatial avoidance on Carousel or merely handled. As adults, rats received two 5-min exploration sessions in the same (A/A) or in two distinct...

The memory and spatial navigation are extremely important brain functions for humans, but they are often the question of life and death for animals. In humans, memory can be disrupted by various neuropsychiatric disorders. The patients suffering from Alzheimer's dementia (AD) have impaired working and long-term memory, spatial navigation, higher cognitive functions and social memory. The deficit of cognitive coordination (the skill to recognize the relevancy of incoming information) and disorientation belong to the symptomatology of schizophrenia. Intelectual disability appears in some patients with autism spectrum disorder. Unfortunately, it is not possible to cure these disorders efficiently because the etiology is not known in the majority of patients. The causes leading to development of these disorders could be revealed using animal models. This thesis contributes to the characterization of the cognitive skills disruptions - as well as other behavioral alterations - in selected rat models of AD (transgenic McGill rat, non-transgenic Samaritan rat) and schizophrenia (lipopolysaccharide model of early postnatal, or prenatal, bacterial infection). The thesis also discusses the validity and limitations of these models. Our results showed a severe deficit of spatial navigation, learning and...