Valerie Case Study

Valerie, a 31 year old mixed raced woman received the diagnoses of depressive schizoaffective disorder and cannabis abuse while she was a sophomore in college. Throughout high school, Valerie was very involved within her friend group and then went off to college with a scholarship and a hope to complete her degree in Fine Arts. Her first year of college went very well; she was involved in many art classes and even won a sculpture contest. As sophomore year came around, Valerie’s hallucinations started to form causing her to skip class, lose her ability to focus, and enjoy activities. Spring semester of sophomore year was the worst time; she failed every class, did not take care of herself, would not eat or eat too much, did not shower, and wore inappropriate clothes for the situation she was in. An incident occurred after a night out where Valerie was screaming to her roommate at 3 am causing her to be diagnosed and hospitalized for three weeks with many symptoms including: hypersomnia, psychomotor retardation, auditory hallucinations, and withdrawal and isolation. After receiving pharmacological intervention, Valerie’s symptoms decreased and her hallucinations disappeared. …show more content…
At the home, she is very independent when it comes to self-care and participates in chores around the house. Valerie has been working for eight months, where she cleans throughout the night at local businesses and her supervisor noted that although she works slowly, Valerie is very reliable and is a good employee. Behavior changes were recently noticed in Valerie which caused her to be admitted into an in-patient unit for auditory hallucinations. At this point, Valerie was experiencing negative voices, loud music, sirens, and depression causing her to attend the day