A prodrome is an early sign of a disease or psychological condition, often applied to schizophrenia and infectious diseases. In psychology, it precedes full-blown psychosis, while in infectious diseases, it’s a short period before the disease appears. Neurocognitive dysfunction can be measured before awareness of a deteriorating condition, and symptoms can be vague.
A prodrome is an early sign or symptom that indicates the onset of a disease or psychological condition. It’s a generic term, but it’s often applied to the specific medical conditions in which it appears, such as schizophrenia and infectious disorders such as measles and chicken pox. In the case of infectious diseases, the disease is often considered to be most contagious during the prodromal phase.
In conditions involving an individual’s psychology, the prodromal stage is characterized by an impaired ability to interact normally in the usual social or occupational environment. This prodromal period is known to precede full-blown psychosis, or the development of a mental disorder, by less than a year. Sometimes a prodromal period can be a prolonged and gradual worsening towards psychosis, but which manifests itself over the course of several years.
Research on prodromal periods of deterioration has shown that neurocognitive dysfunction can be measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before the patient has awareness of a deteriorating condition. When a psychotic break occurs and an individual is consciously aware of a psychotic condition for the first time, it is likely that the condition has already progressed markedly. Ongoing research into schizophrenia prodromal indicators focuses on three well-known symptoms that occur in cases of schizophrenia: auditory comprehension, attention spans, and working memory states.
In infectious diseases such as herpes and chickenpox, the prodromal stage is usually short, and the indicators are a rash or itching and a rise in temperature, respectively, which occur a few days before the diseases appear. This is true in the case of herpes, even though the virus can lie dormant in the body for years. When a virus enters a prodromal stage, it has begun to multiply and symptoms soon follow. When viruses are present in the body but dormant, they are not considered infectious to other individuals until they enter a prodromal stage, followed in two to five days by the fully active disease stage.
Prodrome symptoms can be vague and easily attributed to a multitude of health problems. A prominent example of this is the onset of a migraine, which is a moderate to severe headache condition. Conditions that may be present in the prodromal phase, but tend to occur in only 40-60% of individuals, can include a wide variety of mood changes, from depression to euphoria. Other conditions can be drowsiness, strange food cravings, stiff muscles, among others.
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