Deep brain stimulation. A case report in a patient with a diagnosis of schizophrenia

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness, affecting around 1% of the population, characterized by the presence of positive, negative, affective and cognitive symptoms, remaining a highly disabling mental disorder in a significant proportion of those who suffer from it, despite the improvement in the general prognosis seen in recent decades. Up to 30% of patients with schizophrenia are resistant to treatment with antipsychotic drugs. Patients with schizophrenia who do not respond to standard antipsychotic treatment are classified as having treatment-resistant schizophrenia. It is in these cases that deep brain stimulation is beginning to be investigated and used as treatment, a technique involving high-frequency stimulation, by means of a neurostimulator, in deep areas of the brain through electrodes implanted under stereotactic surgery. We present the clinical case of a patient with chronic paranoid schizophrenia of more than 30 years’ evolution, who presents the first psychotic decompensation requiring admission, eight months after the implantation of the device. After the assessment carried out on the patient, three nursing diagnoses were selected and the most appropriate interventions were planned for each of them, using the NANDA, NIC and NOC taxonomy. These interventions contributed greatly to improving the patient’s psychopathological state.