Health experts usually say that those who suffer from schizophrenia expericnce several symptoms for a significant period of time during a four week period. These include hallucinations which are faulty sensory perceptions such as seeing, delusions or false beliefs that govern their decision making, disorganized speech which is difficult to comprehend, hearing (etc) stimuli that exist only in their fantasy, chaotic or catatonic behavior and/or negative symptoms such as blunting of their emotional expression. Social and occupational functioning is severely impaired as may be their capacity for self-care. These symptoms are not due to a medical disorder, and the symptoms are not due primarily to a mood disorder.
There are primarily five subcategories of schizophrenia:
1. Catatonic schizophrenia: (can include) motoric immobility (statue like body position), stupor or cataplexy (patient can be put into position which they then maintain), or excessive agitation and without purpose, mutisim and/or negativism (refusing to respond to commands), peculiar voluntary body movements or grimacing, echolalia/echopraxia (repeating that which is said).
2. Disorganized schizophrenia: disorganized speech, behavior and flat (blunt) affect (emotional expression) or inappropriate (to the context) emotional expression.
3. Paranoid schizophrenia: preoccupation with delusions (false beliefs) or auditory hallucinations (perception of hearing voices which can be condemning or commanding).
4. Undifferentiated schizophrenia: none of the symptoms are sufficient to be assigned exclusively to the first three types listed above, yet the patient meets the criteria for schizophrenia
5. Residual Type: an absence of paranoid, disorganized or catatonic symptoms but continuing evidence of schizophrenia by the presence of negative symptoms and often accompanied by odd beliefs and unusual perceptual experiences.
Psychiatrists can say that there is no interepisode residual symptoms in schizophrenia. A patient can have continuous symptoms or sontinuous symptoms with prominent negative symptoms. Or the patient may have a single schizophrenic episode in partial remission and with prominewnt negative symptoms. A patient can also have a single schizophrenic episode which is in full remission.
Experts use indicators after the patient do have observed symptoms of the neurotic disorder for at least twelve months after the onset of active-phase symptoms. These are described as episodice with interepisode residual symptoms when there are significant residual symptoms even between the episodes of schizophrenia. This can be further refined to prominent negative symptoms if the symptoms between episodes are negative.