Associations between facial emotion recognition, cognition and alexithymia in patients with schizophrenia: comparison of photographic and virtual reality presentations.

Emotion recognition is known to be impaired in schizophrenia patients. Although cognitive deficits and symptomatology have been associated with this impairment there are other patient characteristics, such as alexithymia, which have not been widely explored. Emotion recognition is normally assessed by means of photographs, although they do not reproduce the dynamism of human expressions. Our group has designed and validated a virtual reality (VR) task to assess and subsequently train schizophrenia patients. The present study uses this VR task to evaluate the impaired recognition of facial affect in patients with schizophrenia and to examine its association with cognitive deficit and the patients' inability to express feelings. Thirty clinically stabilized outpatients with a well-established diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder were assessed in neuropsychological, symptomatic and affective domains. They then performed the facial emotion recognition task. Statistical analyses revealed no significant differences between the two presentation conditions (photographs and VR) in terms of overall errors made. However, anger and fear were easier to recognize in VR than in photographs. Moreover, strong correlations were found between psychopathology and the errors made.

Improving social behaviour in schizophrenia patients using an integrated virtual reality programme: a case study.

Social skills training programmes are among the treatments of choice in schizophrenia. Virtual reality (VR) can improve the results obtained with traditional social skills programmes by helping to generalize the acquired responses to patients' daily lives. We present the results of a case study involving the application of an integrated VR programme for social skills training. A 30-year-old woman with a well-established diagnosis of schizophrenia was enrolled in the study. She completed four baseline sessions, 16 treatment sessions and four follow-up sessions three months after the end of the treatment. Using a multiple baseline across-behaviours design, three target behaviours were analysed: facial emotion recognition, social anxiety and conversation time. Symptoms and social function variables were also assessed. The results showed a positive change in the three target behaviours and improvements in interpersonal communication, assertiveness and negative symptoms. The VR programme proved useful for training the patient's social behaviour and, consequently, for improving her performance.

El síndrome de Charles Bonnet, a propósito de un caso de 27 años / Charles Bonnet syndrome, a 27 years-old patient

El síndrome de Charles Bonnet se caracteriza por lapresencia de alucinaciones visuales complejas sin psicopatologíay sin trastornos de la conciencia. Se asociaa personas con deficiencias visuales severas bilaterales.También se ha descrito el síndrome de Charles Bonnetauditivo en pacientes con sordera adquirida. A pesar dela elevada frecuencia del trastorno, se diagnostica pocoy suele hacerse en pacientes geriátricos. Los objetivosdel presente trabajo son la revisión teórica del Síndromede Charles Bonnet y la presentación de un caso clínicode una joven de 27 años, de interés por la edad de lapaciente y porque era considerada y tratada como enfermapsiquiátrica

Charles Bonnet’s syndrome is characterized by theexistence of visual complex hallucinations without psychiatricmanifestations or cognitive disorder. Is frequentlyobserved in people with severe visual deficiency. Alsothere is an auditory Charles Bonnet’s Syndrome inpatients with deafness. Even the high frequency of thedisorder, often it isn’t correctly diagnosed, and normallyis observed in geriatric patients. In this work we present27 year old patient, she is a young patient and she wastreated like a psychiatric patient. We make a reviewabout this disease and the best indicated treatment (AU)