Schizophrenia Q 49
A client is admitted to the psychiatric hospital with a diagnosis of catatonic schizophrenia. During the physical examination, the client’s arm remains outstretched after the nurse obtains the pulse and blood pressure, and the nurse must reposition the arm. This client is exhibiting:
A. Waxy flexibility
B. Negativity
C. Suggestibility
D. Retardation
Correct Answer: A. Waxy flexibility
Waxy flexibility, the ability to assume and maintain awkward or uncomfortable positions for long periods, is characteristic of catatonic schizophrenia. Clients commonly remain in these awkward positions until someone repositions them. Catatonic patients may also display “waxy flexibility”, meaning that they allow themselves to be moved into new positions, but do not move on their own. Most of the time, this is not an act or a show but rather a genuine and unpremeditated symptom of the illness that patients cannot help.
Option B: Negativity, for example, is resistance to being moved or being asked to cooperate. This psychological phenomenon explains why bad first impressions can be so difficult to overcome and why past traumas can have such long lingering effects. In almost any interaction, we are more likely to notice negative things and later remember them more vividly.
Option C: Clients with dependency problems may demonstrate suggestibility, a response pattern in which one easily agrees to the ideas and suggestions of others rather than making independent judgments. Suggestibility is the quality of being inclined to accept and act on the suggestions of others. One may fill in gaps in certain memories with false information given by another when recalling a scenario or moment. Suggestibility uses cues to distort recollection: when the subject has been persistently telling something about a past event, his or her memory of the event conforms to the repeated message.
Option D: Retardation (slowed movement) also occurs in catatonic clients. Psychomotor retardation (PMR) is a possible feature of a melancholic depressive episode. It can include slowing of speech, thinking, and body movements. Speech may also be decreased in volume or inflection, and there may be increased pauses to the extreme of mutism, which is also a symptom of catatonia.