Quantitative Psychomotor Dysfunction in Schizophrenia: A Loss of Drive, Impaired Movement Execution or Both?

Abstract

Aims: The aim of the present study was to investigate the predictive value of qualitative psychomotor performance levels and subaspects of the negative syndrome for quantitative motor activity levels in patients with schizophrenia. Methods: Twenty-seven stabilized patients with schizophrenia and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were included in the study. An extensive battery of psychomotor performance tests (Finger Tapping Test, Purdue Pegboard Test, Line Copying Test, Neurological Evaluation Scale, Salpêtrière Retardation Rating Scale), clinical rating scales (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale) and 24-hour actigraphy were administered to all participants. Results: Correlational analyses showed that motor activity levels were associated with avolition as well as clinically assessed psychomotor slowing. However, in a regression model, only avolition was found to be a significant predictor for motor activity levels in patients with schizophrenia; none of the psychomotor performance tests nor the severity of emotional expressivity deficits contributed to the model. Conclusion: Qualitative and quantitative psychomotor deficits seem to be independent phenomena in stabilized patients with schizophrenia. The diminishing in motor activity in patients with schizophrenia is related to a loss of drive and not to problems in the quality of movement execution.

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“…It is, therefore, likely that the occurrence of anomalous body experiences found in our study is under-estimated. Yet, in multivariate logistic regression analyses, only negative symptoms were significantly correlated with low physical activity, which is in line with previous studies (16,18,20,48). It is reasonable to believe that negative symptoms are a confounder for low physical activity.…”

Distinguishing Subgroups Based on Psychomotor Functioning among Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

“…In addition, a local database of healthy controls was used to create an age-matched healthy control group (36 women, 15 men; mean age of 55.2 [±15.9] years), collected during previous similar psychomotor studies by our group, applying exactly the same fine psychomotor measurement methods [18, 33, 34]. …”

An unusual complication of a long-acting injectable antipsychotic: deep venous thrombosis caused by olanzapine pamoate

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