Nonverbal communication remains untouched: No beneficial effect of symptomatic improvement on poor gesture performance in schizophrenia.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Gestures are an important part of communication. Patients with schizophrenia present gesture deficits that tend to deteriorate in the course of the disease and hamper functional outcome. This gesture deficit has been associated with motor abnormalities, cognitive impairment, and psychotic symptoms. Unaffected, first-degree relatives of schizophrenia patients share some subclinical motor and cognitive abnormalities. We aimed to investigate, whether gesture performance changes with symptomatic improvement in patients, and to test the longitudinal performance in unaffected, first-degree relatives.

Methods

In this study, we measured gesture performance using a validated test in 33 patients, 29 first-degree relatives and 38 healthy controls. Measurements were completed

SUBMITTER: Wuthrich F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7952214 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature