Bernstein (1) states that schizophrenia strikes about 2 million people in America each year. Schizophrenia is a brain disease that cripples the brain rendering it chronically and severely disabled. Schizophrenia causes people to suffer horrifying symptoms. Some of these symptoms include things such as people reading their minds, hearing voices inside of them, people trying to harm them, or even people trying to control their thoughts. Usually, most of these symptoms leave a person with schizophrenia feeling somewhat withdrawn and frightened. Because at times, their behavior and sometimes their speech can be so incomprehensible and unorganized, they can frighten those around them by this behavior. Therefore, it is essential to learn about …show more content…
Scientists have known long enough that schizophrenia runs in families. This illness occurs in 1 percent of the general population, but it also occurs in 10 percent of people who have a first-degree relative with the disorder, such as a parent, brother, or sister. People who have second-degree relatives such as aunts, uncles, grandparents, or cousins with the disease also develop schizophrenia more than the general population. The risk is higher for an identical twin of a person with schizophrenia. He or she has a chance of 40 to 65 percent of developing the …show more content…
These drugs are effective because they control symptoms by manipulating the brain neurotransmitters called the serotonin and dopamine. Also it is mentioned that a patient’s willingness to stick with treatment can even affect a doctor’s choice of medication. Someone who is resistant to taking medication consistently may need to be given injections instead of taking a pill. Someone who is agitated may need to be calmed initially with a benzodiazepine such as lorazepam (Ativan), which may be combined with an antipsychotic. These newer, second-generation medications are generally preferred because they pose a lower risk of serious side effects than do conventional
Stahl, S. M., & Mignon, L. (2010). Antipsychotics: Treating psychosis, mania and depression (2nd ed.).
Clozapine is used on a limited basis because of the risk of agranullocytosis, where white blood cells are destroyed faster than they are produced, causing the individual to be prone to other illnesses. Two other drugs, either one typical and one atypical, or two atypical medications are used and deemed ineffective before clozapine is used due to the this serious side effect, agranullocytosis. Even thought this risk happens to be small, 1% to 2%, the drug is normally viewed in the psychiatric field as a method of last resort.(Kentridge, 1995) The most common explanation for what occurs in the brain of a schizophrenic is the dopamine hypothesis, where certain areas of the brain have excessive activity at certain dopamine receptors.(Kalat, 2004) This theory will be a reoccurring theme when explaining how clozapine interacts with the body.
According to the DSM-IV, schizophrenia is classified under the section of “Schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders”. Schizophrenia is one of the most serious major chronic brain disorders in the field of mental health; it is a neurological disorder that affects the cognitive functions of the human brain. People living with this incapacitating illness can experience multiple symptoms that will cause extreme strain in their own and their families and friends life. The individual can lose reality, unable to work, have delusions and hallucinations, may have disorganized speech and thought processes, will withdraw from people and activities, they may become suspicious and paranoid, may behave inappropriately in every day social situations. They may neglect personal hygiene and dress improperly, use excessive make-up; every day life is becoming chaotic for everyone involved.
Second, the court must conclude that involuntary medication will significantly further those concomitant state interests. Third, the court must conclude that involuntary medication is necessary to further those interests. The court must find that any alternative, less intrusive treatments are unlikely to achieve substantially the same results. Fourth, as we have said, the court must conclude that administration of the drugs is medically appropriate, i.e., in the patient's best medical interest in light of his medical condition. The specific kinds of drugs at issue may matter here as elsewhere. Different kinds of antipsychotic drugs may produce different side effects and enjoy differen...
The involvement and evolution of anti-depressant drugs is an important role in the fight against depression. In the 1950s the fist generation of anti depressants was discovered. It was not until the 1980s that a newer class of antidepressants revolutionized the treatment of depression. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were the first of these medications to be available in the United States.
Schizophrenia is considered a disease of the brain, a physical disorder that, thanks to modern technology, is able to be visualized. Schizophrenia, along with other diseases of the brain, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and multiple sclerosis, are all brain diseases which alter both functionality and structure of the brain. Schizophrenia has been called a cruel disease, one that impairs life greatly in a degenerative fashion, altering emotions and various abilities greatly. This unfortunate disease is quite common, effecting about one to two percent of the World's population. About two to four percent of the population suffer from less severe yet still debilitating and disturbing schizophrenic-like symptoms. An estimated sixty five billion a dollars per year is spent on this disorder in the United States.(2) It is estimated that over two million Americans suffer from schizophrenia in their lifetime..
Schizophrenia affects nearly about two million people in the United States, according to the SARDAA ( Schizophrenic and Related Disorders Alliance of America). People who have schizophrenia often see and hear people's voices in their mind, they believe that such people are out to get them and trying to harm them. It is difficult to separate the people who have schizophrenia with the ones that have not. Until you hear someone speak during a schizophrenic episode, then it seems like they have lost touch with reality. This is from the lack of activity in the frontal lobe, but the parietal lobe of the brain is overactive. The frontal lobe controls organization skills, memory, and other cognitive skills while the parietal lobe of the brain controls sound, sight, and other functions. The overuse of the parietal lobe can cause these senses to be distorted (Stanley J.Swierzewski,lll, M.D.). People who are affected with this disorder tend to have varying factors. People have tried to figure out what starts schizophrenia, however little is known about this controversial disorder and it is classified as a genetic disorder. The treatments do not always cure the disorder and many people learn how to cope with it own their own. It is suggested that this complex disorder affects people differently and has many treatments available.
Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that affects one to two percent of people worldwide. The disorder can develop as early as the age of five, though it is very rare at such an early age. (3)) Most men become ill between the ages of 16 and 25 whereas most women become ill between the ages of 25 and 30. Even though there are differences in the age of development between the sexes, men and women are equally at risk for schizophrenia. (4) There is of yet no definitive answer as to what causes the disorder. It is believed to be a combination of factors including genetic make-up, pre-natal viruses, and early brain damage which cause neurotransmitter problems in the brain. (3)
The general population has a 1% chance of getting Schizophrenia. About 60% of schizophrenics have no family member with this illness, but it can run in the family. Though it cannot be directly passed from one generation to another. A person has a 10% more chance of getting Schizophrenia if their mother, father, brother, or sister has it. Also if a person is to have an aunt, uncle, cousins, or grandparents that has Schizophrenia they have a higher chance of getting the illness than the general population.
What if you lived your life in constant fear of the voices in your head, feeling like someone’s plotting to harm you, or had a hard time interacting with the people around you? These are some of the common issues that people with Schizophrenia face in their life. Imagine if you were a parent and you believe your child is just acting out, but all signs lead to a much broader diagnosis. In order to visualize ourselves or other people around us living with Schizophrenia; we must first define the meaning of Schizophrenia.
...ected over another because it has less chance of damaging a diseased liver, worsening a heart condition, or affecting a patient’s high blood pressure. For all the benefits that anti-psychotic drugs provide, clearly they are far from ideal. Some patients will show marked improvement with drugs, while others might be helped only a little, if at all. Ideally, drugs soon will be developed to treat successfully the whole range os schizophrenia symptoms. Roughly one third of schizophrenic patients make a complete recovery and have no further recurrence, one third have recurrent episodes of the illness, and one third deteriorate into chronic schizophrenia with severe disability (Kass, 206).
There are many disorders throughout the world that affect people on a daily basis. They are life altering and life changing. They affect how a person can function on a normal level of life. This, in itself, is an interesting way of viewing the disorder, but it truly is the way that schizophrenia is viewed. The term normal is in its self a complex concept, but to understand that for the purpose of schizophrenia; normal is anything that deviates from the socially accepted way of conducting one’s self. The person affected by this disorder is drifting away from reality and, at the same time, drifting away from who they have been their whole life.
At some point a human might have a relative, or heard of someone, or even experienced itself of suffering from Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects many humans throughout the world. People living with this mental disorder may depend on a family member or someone close to take care of him/her. Certain individuals have a good chance of inheriting schizophrenia if a family member appears to show a history of this mental disorder. Unlike others can develop this psychotic disorder while growing up. For instance, a young woman or man may begin to show some signs or symptoms within his/her teen years. Well unfortunately, I have a brother who inherited Schizophrenia and it is extremely difficult to cope with him at certain times.
According to the Johns Hopkins Medicine Website , schizophrenia is “a mental illness that usually strikes in late adolescence or early adulthood, but can strike at any time in life” that is characterized by “delusions, hallucinations, bizarre behavior, [and] disorganized speech” among other symptoms. Schizophrenia is, at its core, the altering of a person’s perception of reality by some somatic means and when observed by a psychologically sound individual, can be quite unsettling. After all, seeing a person whose reality is fractured causes us to doubt our own reality, if only in a fleeting thought.
Another goal of behavioral pharmacology is to develop animal behavioral models to screen chemical compounds with therapeutic potentials. Scientists who are studying this field typically use small animals to study psychotherapeutic drugs such as antipsychotics, antidepressants and anxiolytics, and drugs of abuse such as nicotine, cocaine, methamphetamine. [6]