Konstantinos N Fountoulakis1, Panagiotis Panagiotidis1, Xenia Gonda2, Vasilios Kimiskidis3, Ioannis Nimatoudis1. 1. 13Department of Psychiatry,School of Medicine,Aristotle University of Thessaloniki,Thessaloniki,Greece. 2. 2Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy,Semmelweis University,Budapest,Hungary. 3. 5Laboratory of Clinical Neurophysiology,School of Medicine,Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Neurological soft signs (NSS) are a group of minor non-localisable neurological abnormalities found more often in patients with schizophrenia. The aim of the current study was to test for the effect of gender, age, parental age, age at onset and clinical symptomatology on NSS.Material and methodsThe study sample included 133 patients suffering from schizophrenia according to DSM-IV-TR (77 males and 56 females; aged 33.55±11.22 years old) and 122 normal controls (66 males and 56 females; aged 32.89±9.91 years old). The assessment included the Neurological Evaluation Scale (NES), and a number of scales assessing the clinical symptoms and adverse effects especially extrapyramidal. The statistical analysis included exploratory t-test, simple linear regression analysis, analysis of covariance and the calculation of correlation coefficients. RESULTS: The results of the current study confirm that NSS are more frequent in patients with schizophrenia in comparison with normal controls (Wilks=0.622, p<0.0001), but do not support an effect of gender, age, age at onset, paternal or maternal age, education, medication status or clinical subtype of schizophrenia on NES scores.DiscussionOverall these results suggest that NSS constitute an independent (from the rest of symptoms), core (present in the vast majority of patients) and trait (unrelated to age and probably to the stage of schizophrenia) symptom of schizophrenia which could be of value in the clinical assessment and research of schizophrenia. Overall these results are not in full accord with the literature, but they could serve to fill in gaps and inconsistencies observed so far.
OBJECTIVE: Neurological soft signs (NSS) are a group of minor non-localisable neurological abnormalities found more often in patients with schizophrenia. The aim of the current study was to test for the effect of gender, age, parental age, age at onset and clinical symptomatology on NSS.Material and methodsThe study sample included 133 patients suffering from schizophrenia according to DSM-IV-TR (77 males and 56 females; aged 33.55±11.22 years old) and 122 normal controls (66 males and 56 females; aged 32.89±9.91 years old). The assessment included the Neurological Evaluation Scale (NES), and a number of scales assessing the clinical symptoms and adverse effects especially extrapyramidal. The statistical analysis included exploratory t-test, simple linear regression analysis, analysis of covariance and the calculation of correlation coefficients. RESULTS: The results of the current study confirm that NSS are more frequent in patients with schizophrenia in comparison with normal controls (Wilks=0.622, p<0.0001), but do not support an effect of gender, age, age at onset, paternal or maternal age, education, medication status or clinical subtype of schizophrenia on NES scores.DiscussionOverall these results suggest that NSS constitute an independent (from the rest of symptoms), core (present in the vast majority of patients) and trait (unrelated to age and probably to the stage of schizophrenia) symptom of schizophrenia which could be of value in the clinical assessment and research of schizophrenia. Overall these results are not in full accord with the literature, but they could serve to fill in gaps and inconsistencies observed so far.
Entities:
Keywords:
motor coordination; neurological abnormalities; schizophrenia; soft neurological signs
Authors: Konstantinos N Fountoulakis; Elena Dragioti; Antonis T Theofilidis; Tobias Wikilund; Xenofon Atmatzidis; Ioannis Nimatoudis; Erik Thys; Martien Wampers; Luchezar Hranov; Trayana Hristova; Daniil Aptalidis; Roumen Milev; Felicia Iftene; Filip Spaniel; Pavel Knytl; Petra Furstova; Tiina From; Henry Karlsson; Maija Walta; Raimo K R Salokangas; Jean-Michel Azorin; Justine Bouniard; Julie Montant; Georg Juckel; Ida S Haussleiter; Athanasios Douzenis; Ioannis Michopoulos; Panagiotis Ferentinos; Nikolaos Smyrnis; Leonidas Mantonakis; Zsófia Nemes; Xenia Gonda; Dora Vajda; Anita Juhasz; Amresh Shrivastava; John Waddington; Maurizio Pompili; Anna Comparelli; Valentina Corigliano; Elmars Rancans; Alvydas Navickas; Jan Hilbig; Laurynas Bukelskis; Lidija Injac Stevovic; Sanja Vodopic; Oluyomi Esan; Oluremi Oladele; Christopher Osunbote; Janusz Κ Rybakowski; Pawel Wojciak; Klaudia Domowicz; Maria Luisa Figueira; Ludgero Linhares; Joana Crawford; Anca-Livia Panfil; Daria Smirnova; Olga Izmailova; Dusica Lecic-Tosevski; Henk Temmingh; Fleur Howells; Julio Bobes; Maria Paz Garcia-Portilla; Leticia García-Alvarez; Gamze Erzin; Hasan Karadağ; Avinash De Sousa; Anuja Bendre; Cyril Hoschl; Cristina Bredicean; Ion Papava; Olivera Vukovic; Bojana Pejuskovic; Vincent Russell; Loukas Athanasiadis; Anastasia Konsta; Dan Stein; Michael Berk; Olivia Dean; Rajiv Tandon; Siegfried Kasper; Marc De Hert Journal: Int J Neuropsychopharmacol Date: 2019-11-01 Impact factor: 5.176