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The Importance of Family and Friends in Helping People with Schizophrenia Maintain a Normal Life
Schizophrenia, an often-misunderstood disease, is usually interpreted by those not familiar with it as a Multiple Personality
Disorder. But this is not true. While a person who is afflicted with schizophrenia, may also suffer from multiple personality disorder, it is not the rule of thumb. Unfortunately, due to the lack of support from family or friends, many schizophrenics go without proper treatment and may wind up homeless.
There is nothing that can be measured to diagnose schizophrenia. Other diseases share many of its symptoms. What schizophrenia is or is not, cannot be decided on. However, German psychiatrist, Kurt Schneider, developed a list of symptoms, which occur very rarely in diseases other than schizophrenia. These symptoms include auditory hallucinations in which voices speak the schizophrenic's thoughts aloud. There are also two other forms of auditory hallucinations, in one the victim will hear two voices arguing, and the other a voice will be heard commenting the actions of the person. "Schizophrenics may also suffer from the felling that an external force, or the dilution that certain commonplace remarks have a secret meaning for themselves is controlling their actions", (Torrey, 1983).
"From these symptoms, schizophrenia is divided into four sub-types determined by which symptoms are most prevalent", Strauss, 1987). The four sub-types are paranoid, hebephrenic, catatonic, and finally simple. Paranoid schizophrenics often suffer from either delusions, hallucinations, or both of a persecutory content. Hebephrenic schizophrenia is characterized by inappropriate emotions, disorganized...
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...her form is the use of procedures or drugs, which may be directly beneficial, such as a drug to control the symptoms of schizophrenia. The final type of research is that which is trying to find a better treatment, or the cause of the disease, but most likely won't be a benefit to the patient. An example of this would be performing tests on a schizophrenic to help develop a cure for schizophrenia. That would not benefit the individual because most likely by the time the drug is ready to be prescribed the patient would be dead.
In conclusion, schizophrenia is a disease that is not well under stood. As more is learned about the disease and how it affects the brain of those who suffer from it better treatments will be discovered. Even with the best treatment, support from family and friends are crucial in maintaining normality to the life of those with schizophrenia.
Every year one hundred thousand young Americans are diagnosed with the disease schizophrenia (Carman Research). Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that is associated with unnatural behavior or thinking . The disease usually affects people during the late adolescence stage or early adulthood, typically during this time they develop the symptoms linked to the disease.
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.
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..
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.
As an overview, schizophrenia is a disease to the brain. It is one of the most disabling and emotionally devastating illnesses known to man. It has been misunderstood for a long time. It has a biological basis, so it is like other diseases. It is a very common disease; one percent to one and a half percent of the U.S. has been diagnosed within some point in their life. There is no cure for this disease, although there is treatable medicine. Schizophrenia is not a multiple personality disorder. People who take medicine for it are able to lead normal fulfilling lives.
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.
Schizophrenia, also known as the splitting of the mind, is a mental disorder characterized by disintegration of thought process and of emotional responsiveness. It manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid and bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it are accompanied by significant social and or occupational dysfunction. It is a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions and hallucinations, and accompanied by other emotional behavioral or intellectual disturbances. There are three main factors that are involved in the diagnosis of schizophrenia: 1-Delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, which is a manifestation of formal thought disorder, grossly disorganized behavior or catatonic behavior, negative symptoms, blunted affect, alogia or avolition; 2-Social or occupational dysfunction; 3- Significant duration: continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least six months; according to the DSM IV. Delusions are a false belief based on faulty judgment about one’s environment. Hallucinations are experiencing something from any of the five senses that is not occurring in reality. Positive and negative (deficit) symptoms are important in diagnosing schizophrenia. Positive symptoms (PS) are not experienced, but are present. Delusions, disordered thoughts and speech, tactile, auditory, visual, olfactory, and gustatory hallucinations or manifestations of psychosis are all positive symptoms. Negative symptoms (NS) are deficits of normal emotional responses and thought processes that normally do not respond to medications. The patient experience a flat or blunted affect and emotion, poverty of speech (alogia), inability to expe...
I will first talk about the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. One of the most occurring positive symptoms is hallucinations. Hallucinations are false perceptions, inaccuracies that affect a person's senses and cause us to hear, see, taste, touch, or smell what others do not. Some people with schizophrenia will hear voices that can be reassuring and yet they can be very menacing. Allot of times these voices lead people to hurt themselves or just do abnormal things. Hallucinations, usually the same ones over and over, take control of a person and leave them feeling victimized.
Some people have many different views and ideas about schizophrenia and what really is considered schizophrenia. “Eugen Bleuler had four primary symptoms were abnormal associations, autistic behavior and thinking, abnormal affect, and ambivalence. As well as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association in its second edition was heavily influenced by Bleulers criteria to make the diagnosis of schizophrenia. Bleuler thought that between thought processes and thought, emotion, and behavior to be the hallmark of illnesses and the most obvious and striking manifestation of schizophrenia were only ‘accessory symptoms’ and saw symptoms of schizophrenia in a continuum with normal behavior” (Kaplan and Sadock, page 1432). The definition of schizophrenia is not just one disorder; other disorders branch out of the vague and interesting schizophrenia as in paranoid, catatonia, hebephrenia, disorganized, undifferentiated, residual, and many more.
First, as most people envision a schizophrenic person, a person with schizophrenia will experience either delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech. They may in fact experience more than one or all of these criteria.
Called a “modern leprosy”, schizophrenia and those who struggle with its disabling outcomes glaringly lack public empathy compared to other conditions that are as severe and existent. Stigmas and misconceptions clutter outsider knowledge of the illness, from its prevalence to its actual effects and complications. Often seen as a very distant kind of condition, schizophrenia is frequently connected to crime and a doomed life, however false and unfair. With the contrary being closer to the truth, those coping with schizophrenia are just as human as anyone else. While hope and opportunity stand for schizophrenic persons, knowledge and comprehension would be an integral measure of progress made by the public in really solving the apparent issue, one misunderstanding at a time.
Then there is Undifferentiated Schizophrenia. Undifferentiated Schizophrenia is when people have symptoms of Schizophrenia that are not particularly formed or specific enough to be classified into one of the other subtypes of the illness. This person may experience delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech or behavior, catatonic behavior or negative symptoms. Making the individual not eligible to be categorized as paranoid, disorganized, or catatonic.
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that alters a persons’ thinking ability as well as their actions, emotions, and their judgment of reality. Schizophrenics find a hard time to deal with society and even harder in their relationships with either their loved ones or their colleagues. Schizophrenia has no cure but it can be controlled with proper treatment and medication.
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.
There are many different sub-types of schizophrenia with the paranoid type being the most well-known and common-place sort. Some of the signs and symptoms of the illness include audio and visual hallucinations; people hear and see things that are not there. In most cases, individuals also suffer from delusions; these people think that other people whether it be friends, family or even strangers are plotting against them to do them harm in some way. Other psychological symptoms of schizophrenia include distractibility, and a poor attention span [2-5]. The core of the cognitive symptoms is a memory deficiency in which there is trouble maintaining things in their short-term memory [6, 7].These are but a few of the many symptoms that plagues the poor sufferers of schizophrenia and disrupts their daily lives.