Abstract
Early-onset and very-early onset schizophrenia are relatively rare diagnosis in paedopsychiatry Only a small number of cases with manifestation before tenth year of life have been reported. Our case report describes a boy diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 6.5 years.
Some prodromal symptoms as increasing social withdrawal and affective lability were observed about six months before his admission. On admission, he was experiencing auditory, visual and gustatory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, formal thought disturbances and inappropriate affectivity Similarly to some findings published in the recent literature on childhood schizophrenia, our patient showed a poor response to pharmacotherapy Monotherapy with risperidone was not effective.
Therefore, risperidone was switched to olanzapine, but this change did not lead to a satisfactory decrease of the symptoms either. Finally, augmentation of olanzapine with ziprasidone resulted in a significant improvement of the illness and allowed discharge of our patient from the hospital.
He has been in outpatient care in good condition and stable for more than two years, still taking a combination of olanzapine and ziprasidone.