Psychosis in a child

Signs of psychosis in a child

The manifestation of psychotic behavior can take various forms. The most obvious signs include hallucinations. This is a child’s ability to see, feel, hear and touch something that is not in reality. Another sign of a mental disorder can be defined as delusion - a misinterpretation of the meaning of what really exists. Behaviors that arise include making up words, laughing at unpleasant things, and getting irritated for no reason.

The presence of delusions and hallucinations are hallmarks of psychosis in children. For example, the fairy tale about Cinderella in a healthy child will cause a dream of becoming Cinderella and hostility towards the evil stepmother, and a child with psychosis will believe that she is actually Cinderella and her stepmother lives with her in the apartment. Experts agree that a definitive diagnosis of specific psychosis in preadolescence can only be made when the child begins to speak, although disrupted behavior can also indicate this disease.

What to do if your child has psychosis

Psychosis in children is a violation of the mental well-being of a child, characterized by difficulties in distinguishing between reality and fantasy. This condition prevents you from adequately responding to current events. Psychosis is the root cause of disturbances in thinking, speech activity, emotional reactions, and behavior of the baby.

Causes and symptoms of psychosis in a child

There are all sorts of reasons behind teenage psychosis, like childhood psychosis. Some conditions have a short-term effect on the child’s psyche, and eliminating the irritating factor contributes to the rapid restoration of normal emotional background. Other causes require long-term therapeutic measures.

The most common reasons are:

• use of certain groups of medications;
• rise in body temperature to high values;
• infection with neuroinfection;
• disruptions in the functioning of the endocrine system;
• exposure to a stressful situation;
• being in a traumatic situation;
• genetic predisposition.

The disorder can be an independent pathology, the formation of which is caused by birth trauma, chemical or alcohol intoxication. In most cases, children with congenital developmental anomalies experience mental problems starting from an early age.

In children, disorders can manifest with various symptoms depending on individual and age characteristics. The main signs of the development of a mental disorder are:

• rave;
• hallucinations;
• violation of orientation in space;
• loss of clarity of consciousness;
• difficulties in self-perception.

When hallucinations and delusions form, children interpret current events in a distorted form, utter awkward phrases, and laugh in inappropriate situations. Such children hear and see things that do not exist and experience uncontrollable outbursts of anger. The long course of the disease provokes difficulties in further social and psychological development and mental maturation.

With psychosis, the child becomes lethargic, passive, inhibited, and sleep disturbances are observed. In this state, stinginess of emotions manifests itself, entailing a closure in one’s own personality. Against the background of mental ill-being, intellectual impairments develop. Manifestations of the disease include early childhood schizophrenia, atypical childhood psychosis, and autism.

Types of childhood psychoses

There are several approaches to dividing mental disorders into groups. Emerging juvenile psychoses are classified depending on the causes:

1. Endogenous. Pathologies formed as a result of damage to internal organs. This category includes endogenous depression, schizophrenia, cycloid and symptomatic conditions.
2. Exogenous. Mental states, the development of which is provoked by external factors.

Depending on the intensity of symptomatic manifestations and the rate of their increase, psychologists distinguish reactive and acute psychoses. The first group of conditions is a reversible disease, the development of which was preceded by prolonged exposure to a provoking factor. Acute disorders include mental changes that develop suddenly in a short period of time.

Causes of psychosis in a child

The causes of psychosis can be short-term or long-term physical conditions. These include taking medications, high fever, hormonal imbalance, and meningitis. Typically, an attack of psychosis, the source of which is a physical problem, stops with its solution. In some cases, it takes a couple of weeks after treatment of the underlying disease to give the body time to recover and adapt to reality.

There are cases of the development of psychosis in children without the presence of concomitant diseases. There is an expert assumption that the source of such conditions is a deviation of a biochemical nature. These deviations are considered to be acquired during childbirth or acquired after malicious use of drugs or alcohol. Biochemical abnormalities provoked by external factors cause attacks of temporary psychosis. Such a factor can be severe stress, for example, moving to another apartment, entering a gymnasium, and others.

Children born with severe constitutional disorders suffer from psychoses that spontaneously manifest at an early age. They typically remain disabled throughout their lives. Many doctors do not consider external factors to be convincing for psychosis if it manifests itself symptomatically in early childhood. Research is testing the theory of a genetic factor as the source of the disease.

Manifestation and treatment of various forms of psychosis in children

In common parlance, young mothers refer to childhood tantrums and growth crises as “child psychosis.”

From a medical point of view, everything is much more complicated and serious: psychosis in children is rare, making a diagnosis is not so easy, but at the same time, this disease requires mandatory treatment and observation.

Childhood psychosis is not heart-rending screams and wallowing on the floor, which happen to almost every child. A psychotic disorder has a specific clinical picture, and in order to make a correct diagnosis in childhood, consultation with more than one specialist is usually necessary.

Difficulties in diagnosing psychosis in children

One of the main indicators of a person’s clouding of reason is most often his speech. In psychosis, a person is not able to think coherently, and the flow of his speech clearly demonstrates the confusion and chaotic nature of the sick consciousness.

Is it possible to definitely diagnose psychogenicism in a child under three years of age who has not yet attended kindergarten, and who cannot speak properly? This is often difficult for more medical experts to do. In this case, psychosis in a child can be noticed only by his behavior.

It will also be difficult to determine when and for what reason the psyche was so seriously damaged. The subject of dispute among doctors is also clouding of reason that affects children in pre-adolescence.

Medicine has classified childhood and adult psychotic disorders, but most doctors believe that even in pre-adolescence, the psyche can suffer to the point of psychogenicity. The clinical picture has different symptoms, separating adolescent psychosis, with a number of its differences, from a similar pathology in early or adult periods of life.

It is important to distinguish pathology from other mental disorders at an early age, such as neuroses and hysteria. With many similar symptoms, it is psychosis in children that leads to the destruction of adequate consciousness and the loss of a real picture of the world.

Symptoms of childhood psychosis

Psychosis in children manifests itself in different ways, the symptoms in different forms of pathology are heterogeneous. However, most often a certain set of symptoms appears, such as:

1. Hallucinations. The child sees objects, creatures, events that do not exist in reality. Hears voices, smells, experiences tactile sensations of false origin.
2. Rave. The patient's consciousness is confused, which is clearly manifested in his speech. There is no meaning, coherence, or consistency in it.
3. Inappropriate behavior, for example, inappropriate fun, uncontrollable pranks. The child suddenly, out of the blue, becomes extremely irritable, begins to break toys, things, and hurts animals.
4. Aggression, anger. When visiting school or kindergarten, he speaks rudely and angrily with other children, is capable of calling names or hitting, and is often aggressive with adults. He reacts to insignificant reasons with sharp irritation.
5. Appetite is unstable: from strong greed for food to complete refusal of it.
6. Stupor. He freezes in one position for a long time, the position of his body and facial expressions do not change, his gaze freezes, his face expresses suffering, and does not react to external stimuli.
7. Abrupt change of state. Stupor is suddenly replaced by extreme excitability, high motor activity, combined with an aggressive attitude towards others.
8. Affects. Euphoria, fear, frequent attacks of melancholy, resentment, tears up to hysterical sobs.
9. Doesn't sleep well at night, but constantly wants to sleep during the day. Headaches, high fatigue without external causes.
10. A fever-like condition (in combination with symptoms of impaired consciousness). The child has cold skin, heavy sweating, dry lips, and dilated pupils.

Signs of destruction of consciousness should immediately cause alarm among parents. A child in the acute stage of the disease cannot attend school or kindergarten and needs urgent hospitalization.

But is it possible for an ordinary person without medical education to distinguish children's games and fantasies from hallucinations and delusions? After all, a little boy, while playing, imagines himself as a knight saving the princess from an evil dragon.

Remember that in the case of psychopathy, a number of symptoms will be noticeable that indicate clouding of reason.

Thus, a mentally ill person will actually see an evil monster and behave accordingly - showing strong fear, aggression and other signs of a distorted perception of the world.

In children, symptoms of psychosis have a number of age-related characteristics. By the age of one year, such a child may have a partial or complete absence of the expression of emotions characteristic of infancy.

At 2, 4, even at 6 months, the baby does not smile, does not “cry”.

Compared to healthy 8-9 month old babies, the patient stands out in that he does not recognize his family, does not show interest in the world around him, and may experience obsessive, monotonous movements.

At two years of age, a child susceptible to psychotic disorder will exhibit noticeable developmental delays. In a 3-year-old child, an inadequate perception of reality will be more obvious.

In young children, atypical childhood psychosis is identified. Its symptoms are similar to autism (one of its varieties even has a similar name - “infantile psychosis”). It can occur even in intellectually developed children (although it still occurs more often in mentally retarded people).

The sick person will have poor contact with people and demonstrate delayed speech development. It may be characterized by obsessive identical movements or uncontrolled repetition of other people's words (echolalia). When attending kindergarten, such children do not fit into the general group, since they do not understand those around them and have difficulty adapting to the slightest changes.

Causes of pathology

Physiological causes of psychotic disorders at an early age include:

1. Thyroid dysfunction.
2. Consequences of hormonal imbalance, puberty.
3. High temperature caused by other diseases.
4. Side effects from chemotherapy and medications.
5. Meningitis.
6. Alcohol taken by a pregnant woman (fetal alcoholism in utero) or while breastfeeding.
7. Genetic inheritance.

Teenagers often experience mental breakdowns as a result of being in a stressful situation. Serious psychological trauma for them can be the death of a loved one, conflict situations in the family or with friends, or a sudden change in life circumstances.

Psychosis that occurs against the background of psychological trauma in a teenager, like similar manifestations of the disease in adults, may not last long and disappears with the elimination of the stress factor.

But it is worth remembering that the tendency to psychotic disorders can be inherited, and then the course of the disease can be more severe. Sometimes dysfunction of consciousness reaches disability, persisting throughout life.

A psychologist talks about how parental behavior can trigger the development of psychosis in a child.

Variety of forms of the disease

Depending on many factors, the disease can occur in different ways:

• quickly and rapidly, with a vivid manifestation of symptoms;
• long, but with sharp periodic bursts;
• quickly, but with unexpressed symptoms;
• Symptoms develop over a long period and appear faintly and sluggishly.

Depending on the age of the patients, early (before adolescence) and late (in adolescents) forms of the pathology are also distinguished.

Psychotic conditions caused by external temporary factors are usually easier to diagnose and treat. The acute phase passes when the provoking problems stop, although additional time is always required to fully restore the exhausted psyche.

In the case of a long stay of a person in a traumatic situation or brain damage caused by biochemical abnormalities (both congenital and provoked by taking medications, diseases and other factors), an acute psychotic disorder develops into a chronic one. Prolonged confusion of mind is extremely dangerous for a small person. Intellectual development suffers from dysfunction of brain activity; the child cannot adapt to society, communicate with peers, or do favorite things.

Drug treatment and a corrective psychotherapeutic course for severe forms of mental illness are mandatory. Acute psychosis is especially dangerous when all the symptoms manifest themselves very strongly and vividly, and the growth of pathological processes occurs rapidly.

Diagnosis of the disease

It is better to carry out a detailed diagnosis of mental disorders in a hospital under the constant supervision of doctors. To prescribe effective therapy, it is necessary to clearly determine the cause of the psychotic reaction.

In addition to a psychiatrist, an otolaryngologist, a neurologist, a psychologist, and a speech therapist must take part in the examination. In addition to a general examination of the body, the child also undergoes special mental development testing (for example, a computer or written test for the level of thinking development in accordance with the age group, speech coherence, picture tests, etc.).

Diagnosis of psychosis in a child

Diagnostic measures for suspected psychosis in a child take several weeks or months. He should be carefully examined by the following doctors: a specialist in developmental diseases, an otolaryngologist, a speech therapist, a neurologist. A physical and psychological examination is carried out - the child’s behavior is observed for a long time, mental abilities are tested, hearing and speech are checked. Hospitalization is possible for various types of studies of the nervous system.

If it is determined that a child's psychosis is based on a physical illness, the diagnosis switches to searching for its cause. Parents always have the right to doubt the correct diagnosis and can get advice from other specialists.

Treatment of psychosis in a child

Episodic attacks of psychosis associated with a physical condition disappear with the disappearance of the underlying disease. Children who have experienced severe episodes of psychosis should be seen by a mental health expert (psychiatrist, social worker, or psychologist) to evaluate psychotic episodes. In some cases, children require long-term therapeutic care. Prevention of such cases depends on preventive measures against the underlying causes.

A child who has experienced a psychotic breakdown, the source of which was a stressful situation, requires short or long-term psychotherapeutic assistance (individual, family psychotherapy, behavior modification). In difficult situations, it is possible to use treatment with medications that compensate for biochemical disorders. Treatment of early psychoses is ineffective. Tranquilizers are prescribed exclusively for aggressive behavior.

Author of the article:

Mochalov Pavel Alexandrovich |
Doctor of Medical Sciences therapist Education: Moscow Medical Institute named after. I. M. Sechenov, specialty - “General Medicine” in 1991, in 1993 “Occupational diseases”, in 1996 “Therapy”. Our authors