INTRODUCTION
Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness. Patients experience progressive personality changes and a breakdown in their relationships with the outside world. They have disorganized and abnormal thinking, behavior and language and become emotionally unresponsive or withdrawn.
“The first signs, usually only noticed in looking back on events, are likely to include an unexpected withdrawal of the degree or type of contact that the person used to have with family or school. The person seems less capable of of dealing with "minor" stresses in the accustomed way. This may develop to an extreme over months or years (sometimes termed negative symptoms). Alternatively, the person may develop elaborate constructions to interpret the world, as they see it, which may reflect matters that are only in their mind (sometimes termed productive or positive symptoms, that, in the extreme, can take the form of delusions or auditory hallucinations).” (Schizophrenia: A Background Sketch http://www.biopsychology.uni-essen.de/Background%20Sketch(1).htm)
People who suffer from schizophrenia may have a very broad range of symptoms which can cause great distress to themselves and their families. These symptoms can take many forms including:
• 'Positive symptoms’ (abnormal experiences), such as hallucinations (seeing, hearing, feeling something that isn't actually there), delusions (false and usually strange beliefs) and paranoia (unrealistic fear)
• 'Negative symptoms' (absence of normal behaviour), such as emotional withdrawal, and lack of motivation and enjoyment
• Cognitive dysfunction (problems with concentration, learning abilities and memory)
The lifetime risk of someone suffering from schizophrenia is about 1%, and most people first experience symptoms between the ages of 15 and 35 years.
“Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease. Approximately 1 percent of all populations develop schizophrenia during their lifetime. In the vast majority of cases, onset of the illness occurs between the ages of 15 and 25, making schizophrenia the single biggest cause of permanent disability starting in youth. Schizophrenia causes around 10 percent of patients to suicide, usually before the age of 30. This makes the illness a major cause of youth suicide, and responsible for more deaths than AIDS, SIDS and MS combined.” (NISAD: A S...
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...eeks or even a few days.
There are many potential outcomes of schizophrenia. Some people only have one episode of schizophrenia and recover fully while others have several attacks throughout their lives. Some people may need lifelong care and support.
Unfortunately, schizophrenia cannot be cured. Treatment usually consists of antipsychotic therapy, counseling, family support and rehabilitation. Medicines can help to control many of the symptoms. Most people with schizophrenia will need to take medicines for the rest of their lives.
BIBILOGRAPHY
1) Convergence of Biological and Psychological Perspectives of Cognitive Coordination in Schizophrenia, Phillips, William A. and Silverstein, Steven M. Behavioral and Brain Sciences(2003) 26, 000-000
2) Genes Unravel Mystery of Schizophrenia, reuters, 31 August 2004 http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1188741.htm
3) NISAD: A Schizophrenia Research, http://www.nisad.org.au/schizophrenia/default.asp
4) Schizophrenia: A Background Sketch http://www.biopsychology.uni-essen.de/Background%20Sketch(1).htm
5) SCHIZOPHRENIA.COM http://www.schizophrenia.com/newsletter/buckets/diag.html
The most typical symptoms of schizophrenia are things such as, hearing things that others cannot, such as voice of people whispering, having a feeling that someone is going out of their way to make sure they harm you, having visions of things that people around you cannot see, receiving special messages from the television, radio, and other appliances, felling that you posses special powers that ca...
The characteristic symptoms start between the age of 18 and 30. Symptoms include hallucinations and/or delusions. Hallucinations can have various modes. Auditory hallucinations are the most common. These may involve hearing a voice or voices talking to each other and/or to the patient. Visual hallucinations are less common and involve the patient believing they see an object that is not present. Tactile hallucinations are the least common and involve the patient thinking that someone or something is touching them (Nienhuis).
Schizophrenia is a group of psychotic disorders with major impairments in thought, emotion, and behavior; there is a constant prevalence rate of one percent with the occurrence being slightly higher in men. Though different psychologists have various theories on whether the disorder is linked to genetics or social economic status, schizophrenia in all
If you or someone you care about is determined to beat Schizophrenia, it hinges on compliance in taking the best medication for Schizophrenia. Anti-schizophrenia drugs involve a lifetime commitment. Also, everybody responds to each antipsychotic med in a different way, so that a little patience is necessary in the beginning.
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.
One common symptom is delusions, which are false beliefs that the person holds and that tend to remain fixed and unshakable even in the face of evidence that disproves the delusions (Cicarelli, p. 557). Other common symptoms include speech disturbances, in which people with schizophrenia make up words, repeat words or sentences persistently, string words together on the basis of sounds, and experience sudden interruptions in speech or thought. The thought patterns of those with schizophrenia are also significantly disturbed, as they have difficulty linking their thoughts together in logical ways (Cicarelli, p. 557). Individuals with schizophrenia may also experience hallucinations, in which they hear voices or see things or people who are not really there. Hearing voices and emotional disturbances are key symptoms in making a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia has multiple symptoms; according to the World of Health Organization, these symptoms include “delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavior [as well as depressive behavior].” Monomania
Schizophrenia can be described by a wide-ranging spectrum of emotional and cognitive dysfunctions. These can include hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and behavior, as well as inappropriate emotions. Consequently, this disease can affect people from all walks of life. Since schizophrenia is such a complex disorder it can ultimately affect a person’s entire existence and their struggle to function daily. With a chronic disease like this, most people have a difficult time functioning in society. This can make it hard for someone who is schizophrenic to relate to others as well as maintain significant relationships. Life expectancy for those who suffer this illness tend to be shorter than average. This is due to the higher rate of accident and suicide. The symptoms of schizophrenia can be broken down into different categories: positive, negative and disorganized. Positive symptoms include hallucinations and delusions. These tend to be the more obvious signs of psychosis. On the other hand negative symptoms indicate deficits or absence of normal behavior which can affect sp...
I’m sure you’re thinking that you’re more confused now than when you started but not to worry! What all of this means is the person exhibits symptoms of Schizophrenia and also has symptoms of a mood disorder like major depression and/or mania. Some describe Schizoaffective Disorder as Schizophrenia with Bi-polar Disorder. Although it is a little more complicated than that, it is a good overall generalization of the disorder. The symptoms of Schizophrenia include hallucinations such as hearing voices and seeing things that are not there, delusions, disorganized speech, disorganized or catatonic behavior, and the decrease or lack of speech, movement, or emotion. Along with these symptoms the patient will have periods of depression (disinterest in l...
Brief Introduction- Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects almost all the five senses, but most commonly it manifests as auditory hallucination, paranoid or bizarre delusions, disorganized thinking and speech, and social dysfunction. III. Establishment of Credibility- I decided to inform you of Schizophrenia because my neighbor’s granddaughter is diagnosed with the disorder and I know her, and I know what she goes through day by day
Schizophrenia is a multifaceted, incapacitating mental illness affecting insight, emotions, cognition, social interaction and choice. Further more it results in delusional and hallucinatory experiences (Stanley, et al., 2007).
Symptoms may slowly develop over months, or they may appear abruptly depending on the type of schizophrenia the person is experiencing. The three different types of schizophrenia are positive, negative and cognitive. Positive symptoms tend to add on to an individual’s personality. For example, a person with positive schizophrenia may experience hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized speech. As opposed to the positive symptoms, negative symptoms take away from a person’s normal behavior.
It's hard for people with this type of paranoia to deal with the basic activities in life. This disorder appears in the late teens and early adult years. It is rare that you will see a young child or adolescent with schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder that effects thirty-two million Americans. Although it is often diagnosed in young adulthood, it is becoming more prevalent in younger generations as we learn how to diagnose the symptoms earlier and by advancing our knowledge on the genetic coding of the disease. Distinguishing symptoms of schizophrenia vary and are generally divided into three categories - positive symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive symptoms. Patients suffering with positive symptoms often lose touch with reality and may experience hallucinations which are things that cannot be seen, heard, smelled, or felt by others. Delusions or false beliefs are also common symptoms and may cause severe paranoia as the patient believes