Browsing by Author "Hakonen, Emma"

Objectives: Research has shown that cognitive deficits are a significant part of schizophrenia. Patients with schizophrenia show poorer performance in multiple areas of cognition such as memory functions, processing speed and executive functions. This review focuses to examine the range of specific executive function deficits in first-episode schizophrenia and how these deficits change during 1-3 year follow up period. Furthermore, the review focuses on viewing whether executive functioning is related to clinical profile, clinical outcome or functional outcome. Methods: The research was executed as a literature review. Search of literature was focused to executive functioning in adult first-episode schizophrenia. The following keywords were used in google scholar and Helka finna databases: ”first episode schizophrenia”, ”schizophrenia” combined with keywords ”executive functions”, ”cognitive functions” and ”cognitive deficits”. Keyword “outcome” was combined with the previous when searching for outcome articles. Some of the articles used were found from other research articles and they were included in the review if they met the same inclusion criteria. Results and conclusions: First-episode schizophrenics showed broad executive function deficits in multiple specific areas of function. Problems were systematically seen in working memory, cognitive flexibility, fluency, inhibition and planning. In addition, there were conflicting results about attention allocation and initiation. Executive deficits did not seem to change drastically during a 1-3 year follow up period, but cognitive flexibility skills were assessed to improve in multiple studies. Moreover, research shows that negative and disorganization symptoms relate to executive dysfunction. Several studies considering relation between executive function and outcome show that there is a link between executive functioning and functional outcome. Studies considering clinical outcome were conflicted and certain conclusions cannot yet be drawn. However, it seems that planning abilities might be related to clinical outcome but there is a need for further study.