Schizophrenia Is a Mental Disorder

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that includes a group of psychopathological symptoms that indicate abnormalities in behavior, thinking and emotion. According to DSM-IV, thought process is affected as patients distort their reality or become disconnected with it and thus appear delusional. Similarly their emotional health changes when symptoms of schizophrenia appear and these patients begin losing their emotional connection with others around them and their brain produces unsuitable emotional responses to various situations. Behavior of patients also changes as they tend to exhibit more regressive behavior and they tend to behave childishly.

Symptoms

Commonly characterized by paranoia, schizophrenics may also exhibit other symptoms such as false beliefs, misconstrued reality, hearing voices, social isolation, lack of emotions, and wrong response to emotional situations, improper control on speech and movement and rash/angry behavior. Patients will commonly display most of these symptoms with the most prominent being presence of hallucinations and paranoia. Most patients think there is a controversy against them on national level, some may hear and see things that others cannot validate and some would seek isolation.

Prevalence

The prevalence rate of schizophrenia is low with reported incidences being less than 1% (Nosrquist, Narrouw, 2000). Cases are reported in every nation and society. The symptoms of this mental disorder are usually triggered in puberty, more specifically at the last stages of puberty. There has been no significant difference in prevalence among men and women but men generally exhibit symptoms between the ages of 17 and 27 while women do so between the ages of 17 and 37.

Causes

Main causes of schizophrenia are heredity and cerebral malfunction. Some studies have also found a social link and thus attribute schizophrenia to socio-genetic factors. This study suggests that people from lower income group may be more vulnerable to schizophrenia because of generally depressing and debilitating conditions of their home lives. In case of genes, it has been found that patients with schizophrenia have a history of the disorder in the family. "Both family and adoptive studies suggest a greater prevalence of schizotypal personality disorder in the relatives of patients with schizophrenia than in comparison groups." (Siever, 2001)

Treatment

Schizophrenia has existed throughout history which means no particular era, nation or society was exclusive to the disorder (Peuskens, et al., 2001). Since it had not always been diagnosed as a medical problem, it was called many things from demonic influence to lunacy. In many cases, patients were excluded from the society and in some even revered as they were believed to have special powers. Though treatment remained elusive for decades, the medical community has finally discovered some interventions that have made schizophrenia treatable to the extent that patients can live an uneventful life, though getting back to normal life may still not be possible. The best thing resulting from availability of treatment options is that patients are now capable of returning to society.

Before the availability of modern treatment options, patients were forced to receive stay at mental institutions and were mostly shunned by families. Many movies and vast amount of literature highlighted the problems and abuses faced by schizophrenics in mental institutions and thus treatment at home was called for. This helped in significantly reducing the number of cases sent to mental institutions and patients began receiving treatment at home. One good example of how treatment at home helped was found in the case of Professor John Nash. John Nash's real life struggle with schizophrenia was documented in a novel and then a movie called 'A beautiful Mind', which helped us see how patients of schizophrenia misconstrue their reality and how modern treatment interventions can help them become useful and productive members of the society again.

Schizophrenia and suicide:

Schizophrenia has also been linked higher risk of suicide. It is now a well established fact that schizophrenia can lead to suicide in some cases and awareness is still low among patients with schizophrenia. Since most patients may remain undiagnosed, treatment options may elude a vast population of patients with this disorder. Even though it has been found that with increased awareness, better treatment options can be utilized, for some reason, the risk of suicide doesn't decrease substantially with awareness. In fact some studies suggest that increased awareness may actually increase suicide risk and the link can be seen as treatment progresses. This is because as patients admit that they have a mental disorder and their behavioral malfunction is associated with a serious condition, it gives rise to intense feelings of depression and complete frustration. Patients may lose hope and thus may decide to end their lives. Thus risk of suicide increase as awareness of disorder increases in patients.

It has also been found that while suicide risk may increase as patients become aware of their condition; the awareness still plays a significant role in treating the patients. Most schizophrenia patients are likely to respond more positively to medical intervention if they understand their condition. There is a general willingness to cooperate and to feel better even though risk of suicide remains high.

Cannabis Use and Schizophrenia

It is believed that cannabis use is connected with onset of schizophrenia or worsening of its symptoms. A condition known as cannabic psychosis has been discovered in connection with the use of cannabis which can last for weeks or months in people who are heavy long-term users of cannabis. Recent studies have confirmed the existence of this type of psychosis and it has lent further credibility to reports of link between schizophrenia and cannabis.

Thus when users of cannabis continue using it in the hope that it would reduce their psychotic symptoms, the condition may worsen and cause hallucinations just like in the case of schizophrenia. The connection between cannabis use and schizophrenia is now well documented. Linzen et al. (1994) have found that schizophrenia can develop in those cannabis users who display certain personality traits and have a family history of psychosis. This shows that certain personality types and genetic combination may predispose some people to symptoms of schizophrenia.

Personality Traits and Schizophrenia