Schizophrenics and Schizophrenia: Drugs are NOT the Solution
Last month, I shadowed a physician for four days. When I arrived at her office on the first day, she said to me, "Prepare yourself, we are going to the Provident." The Provident is a nursing home for the severely mentally ill. Many of the patients living there are under fifty years old, some are as young as thirty. None of the residents have any money. All are receiving welfare and are on Medicare.
We entered the building into a room where approximately 15 people were sitting in chairs. Most were staring straight ahead, eyes glazed. Some were chattering quietly to themselves, some were walking around with an awkward gait. As I walked further through the floor looking into rooms, I saw many people sleeping in their beds.
I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like if the people living at the Provident were suddenly not taking any medication. Would they be out of control? Was it possible that beneath all of the drug-induced stares, shakes and speech impediments that an alert person existed? Perhaps their diseases had prevented them from interacting with other people in what would be considered a "normal" way. But are they better off now that they are too drug-altered and often depressed to interact at all?
As a society, we try to get rid of things we are afraid of, things which make us nervous and things we don't understand. Perhaps mental illness is not so much a problem for the mentally ill, but for their communities who can not and will not empathize with them. I wonder if people suffering from a mental illness are not really suffering at all, but are simply a behavioral minority. Their behavior prevents them from being accepted by the majority. They can not find work or often even a place to live, as these things are controlled by the majority. Instead, for those that are ironically considered lucky, the majority gives them medication and often sends them away to a locked facility.
For this second web-paper, I will try to explore these questions by learning about schizophrenia, a common diagnosis at the Provident. Some have argued that people "afflicted" with schizophrenia have a damaged I-function. That is, schizophrenics are not capable of responding appropriately to their environment because their I-function is not fully grown or as well-developed as a "healthy" person.
From before the country’s conception to the war that divided it and the fallout that abolished it, slavery has been heavily engrained in the American society. From poor white yeoman farmers, to Northern abolitionist, to Southern gentry, and apathetic northerners slavery transformed the way people viewed both their life and liberty. To truly understand the impact that slavery has had on American society one has to look no further than those who have experienced them firsthand. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and advocate for the abolitionist, is on such person. Douglass was a living contradiction to American society during his time. He was an African-American man, self-taught, knowledgeable, well-spoken, and a robust writer. Douglass displayed a level of skill that few of his people at the time could acquire. With his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave Written by Himself, Douglass captivated the people of his time with his firsthand accounts into the horror and brutality that is the institution of slavery.
1 in 1000 to 1 in 10,000 peoples around the world and, 4-10 per 100000 in the western countries are affected with HD. The average age of onset is 40 years and disease progresses over 15-20 years. The earliest symptoms include general lack of co-ordination, uncontrollable jerky movements called chorea and slow saccadic eye movements. As the disease progresses cognitive abilities are declined and finally leading to dementia along with behavioural and psychiatric problems [3]
Meier, August, and Elliott M. Rudwick. From plantation to ghetto. 3d ed. New York: Hill and
Although the United Sates and Saudi Arabia present the United States and Saudi Arabia’s relationship as excellent, there are actually two nations who have bitter disagreements but who allies through oil. The only thing that has held this alliance together is the US dependence on Saudi oil. The United States has felt and still fells that it is a necessity to have bases present in the Middle East to protect oil, and silently to protect Israel. The relationship began in 1933 when Standard Oil of California signed an agreement with the Saudi government. In 1943 FDR affirmed that the defense of Saudi Arabia was a vital interest to the United States and moved troops into the region. Future presidents would emulate this declaration and mobilization of troops to Saudi Arabia. Again in 1945 Abd al Aziz, the Saudi king, and FDR would cement this alliance, on a US warship in the Suez Canal. Soon after, airfields were constructed at Dhahran and other spots over Saudi Arabia; beginning a long tradition of US military facilities in Saudi Arabia. Abd al Aziz was the first of his line of successors to meet with US presidents. The relationship was only strengthened with the onset on the Cold war, as the US used the bases in Saudi Arabia as potential air force launch sites to the USSR and constructed more military facilities. In 1941 Harry S. Truman made another assertion of Americas protection and alliance with Saudi Arabia to Abd Al Aziz. Truman stated that “support for Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity and political independence was a primary objective of the United States.” (Countrystudies.com) Another stipulation of this pact was that the US established a permanent military training mission in the Saudi Arabia. That mission lasted until 1992. Soon after the pact between Truman and Aziz was agreed upon the US-Saudi relationship would endure its first major disagreement. On May 14th, 1948 Israel was declared an independent state in the former Arab dominated Palestine. Israel’s independence was backed the United States. Saudi Arabia refused to acknowledge the country of Israel and to engage in any relations with them. The Saudis concerns of the Israel-US relationship were reinforced in the 1970’s and 1980’s when the US sold arms to Israel, but refused to sell arms to Saudi Arabia. In some cases congressional leaders refused to sell arms to Saudi Arabia on the grounds that Saudi Arabia might use them against Israel.
There are several people every year that are diagnosed with a mental disorder. In the world’s entire population, more than one percent of people have been diagnosed with schizophrenia (Brain and Behavior Research Foundation). When thinking of the billions of people in the world, it might not seem like that many people but once the number of those diagnosed is calculated it seems much larger. Currently there are more than seventy million people in the world that have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, only diagnosed. There are probably several more people who have this disorder and have not been diagnosed or are unable to obtain the resources to be diagnosed.
Benjamin Banneker had made a written attempt to appeal to a White man in a position of authority to end slavery; to no avail. Banneker passed away on October 9, 1806.
Schizophrenia as a Biological Disorder As well as the biological approaches there are physiological, psychological and environmental explanations. New theories of schizophrenia are constantly being developed each having their own advantages and disadvantages. How do we know however, which one is correct? The biological explanation suggests that schizophrenia is produced by an unfortunate combination of genes or is due to physical problems in the brain. Researchers favouring the biological explanation look at genetic factors, brain structure and biochemical explanations.
Crude oil is perhaps more easily found than water in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is home to nearly a quarter of the world's proven petroleum reserves (Klare 55). Naturally, this has caught the rapacious eye of the United States, which has, especially since the establishment in 1980 of the Carter Doctrine, increasingly defined the security of its extra-national oil supplies as a matter of vital national interest even during times of peace (33). At the end of World War II, envisioning the future need for oil, President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Saudi King Abdel-Aziz Ibn Saud and offered the country and regime American protection, with a "vital but unspoken quid pro quo: in return for protecting the royal family against its enemies, American companies [would] be allowed unrivaled access to Saudi oil fields" (75).
Huntington’s disease (HD), also known as Huntington chorea, is an inherited disorder that causes the death and break down the nerve cells in the brain. This genetic disorder is a late onset in life, except for the rare occurrence of this disease, called juvenile huntingtons. Symptoms usually start appearing in people between the ages of thirty and fifty years old. However, if the symptoms become present before the
Symptoms of the disease vary from person to person. Some people with HD may have a hard time walking, muscle loss or spasms, slurred speech, trying to eat, and swallow. Other symptoms are uncontrollable movements, tremors, depression, irritability,
Approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are diagnosed with Schizophrenia and it is one of the leading causes of disability. Known factors in the development of schizophrenia include: genetic inheritance, structural abnormalities in the brain, unusual alterations in the levels of certain key brain chemicals, and the lack of adequate nutrition during the fetal development. Schizophrenia is a mental illness in which reality is perceived differently and has many different treatment methods.
Saudi Arabia is a primarily oil-based economy, with oil being the most important component of the nation’s rapid economic development since World War II. U.S. geologists discovered oil in the region in the 1930s, and since exports expanded most notably in the 1960s, production and rich revenues have been seemingly limitless. The amount of oil in Saudi Arabia’s reserves amounts to close to a quarter of the world’s entire oil resources, and today the country produces about 10,000 barrels a day. As a result, the valuable resource currently accounts for 90% of the country’s exports and contributes to 75% of government revenues annually. During the 1970s, following the Arab-Israeli war, Saudi Arabia’s economy was one of the fastest growing in the world due to a sharp increase in the value of petroleum.
Crude oil is such an essential part of our modern lives that we can often take for granted that our supply of it will remain constant. Small, unstable countries often hold great amounts of this precious resource, along with the ability to cut our supply in a moment’s notice. Therefore, the discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia caused a dramatic increase in the revenue of the country. Saudi Arabia’s newfound wealth was exploited to serve the political and economic needs of an opportunistic Islamic monarchy, while the concerns and rights of its subjects were consistently cast to the wayside. Through a global trade network, Saudi Arabia found great prosperity at the cost of sacrificing its founding principles.
"Syrian refugees in Lebanon still suffering." The Economist. N.p., 30 Oct 2014. Web. 20 Jan "The Refugees." New York Times 5 September 2013, n. pag. Print.
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the largest countries in the Middle East. It occupies the Arabian Peninsula in the southwest of Asia. It is bounded by the Arabian Gulf, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates to the East; Yemen and Oman on the South; Red Sea and Gulf of Al-Aqaba to the West; and Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait to the North. Its area is about 2,240,000 square kilometers and has a population of seventeen million people according to the last census performed in 1993. Saudi Arabia is considered a developing country. It has been developing at a relatively fast rate since it was established as modern state in 1932. Its population increases about 3.8% per year. Saudi Arabia remains a very conservative society combining strong traditions with a strict interpretation of Islam (Al- Rasheed pp6). However, the discovery of oil in the Saudi desert territories has made it necessary for the country to quickly modernize in order to fully benefit from the resource. Large oil deposits were discovered in 1938 making Saudi Arabia the first oil-exporting country in the world. Oil revenues resulted in drastic changes in the society, especially during the past 30 years. Oil provided the Saudi state with extraordinary wealth to build the economic and material infrastructure of the country, transforming the state into a rapidly modernizing landscape. These changes have influenced the social and economic aspects of life, including the field of education. (Al-Gahtany, 2001, p.14). Oil wealth has enabled the state to make great achievements in the fields of education, technology, health, and material affluence, benefitting the people of Saudi Arabia (Al- Rasheed p.12). In celebratin...