Schizophrenia: Factors and Treatment

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Schizophrenia is a psychological disorder that affects about 2.2 million people (Lumpur, 2005). As a child, this author did not understand the term “schizophrenic”. All that was known was that a person with the disease did not appear to be sick but on the inside they are mentally disturbed. The author’s previously thoughts of schizophrenia was unclear, this report will describe schizophrenia and its causative factors as well as descriptions on how schizophrenia is diagnosed and treated.
Schizophrenia is a mixture of signs and symptoms that can either be both positive and negative (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Sign and symptoms of the disorder can be an indication of social or occupation dysfunction (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). A person that has been previously diagnosed with a pervasive development disorder may be diagnosed as a schizophrenic only if the signs of delusions or hallucination are present (American Psychiatric Association, 2000). Symptoms of schizophrenia are noted as lacking a range of “cognitive and emotional dysfunction, inferential thinking, language and communication, behavioral monitoring, fluency and productivity of thought and speech, hedonic capacity, volition and drive, and attention” (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).
Whereas, commonly used terminology classifies schizophrenia as a mixture of symptoms that include “hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, withdrawal, flattened emotional responses, and impairment of memory” (Ledgerwood, Ewald, & Cochran, 2003). The onset of schizophrenia among males is in the late teen years while the females are in their mid- twenties (Ledgerwood et al., 2003). Schizophrenia was formally known as “brain damage” but is now commonly r...

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...ectives in Biology and Medicine, 46(3), 317-48. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/230489658?accountid=34899
Lumpur, K. (2005). What is schizophrenia? Retrieved from Sunday Mail: Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/325080490?accountid=34899
Mortensen, P. B., Pedersen, M. G., & Pedersen, C. B. (2010). Psychiatric family history and schizophrenia risk in denmark: Which mental disorders are relevant? Psychological Medicine, 40(2), 201-10. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291709990419
Palmer, B. W., Dawes, S. E., & Heaton, R. K. (2009). What do we know about neuropsychological aspects of schizophrenia? Neuropsychology Review, 19(3), 365-84. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11065-009-9109-y
What is schizophrenia? (2013). Retrieved from National Institute of Mental Health : http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/schizophrenia/index.shtml

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