This paper provides a detailed examination of schizophrenia, a chronic brain disorder affecting perception, cognition, and behavior. The paper defines the condition, explores early warning signs, and categorizes symptoms into three types: positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, movement and thought disorders), negative symptoms (speech abnormalities, emotional flatness, disinterest), and cognitive symptoms (memory and attention problems). It discusses both genetic and environmental risk factors, explains the diagnostic procedures used to identify schizophrenia, and outlines typical and atypical antipsychotic medications used in treatment. The paper emphasizes that schizophrenia affects approximately 1 in 100 Americans, with higher prevalence among men and young adults aged 16–30.
Schizophrenia is a chronic disorder of the brain that affects the way a person sees the world, and how they think and behave toward others. People with schizophrenia find it difficult to function normally and often face serious challenges relating to others, managing emotions, thinking clearly, maintaining conversations, and distinguishing between what is real and what is imagined (Helpguide, 2014; NIMH, 2014). This blurred perception of reality drives such persons to hear or see things that other people cannot see, causing them to retreat from the rest of the world in fear that someone is constantly watching them and is out to harm them (Helpguide, 2014).
Although schizophrenia is widely perceived as a rare condition, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) places its prevalence rate at 1 out of every 100 Americans, with men and young adults between the ages of 16 and 30 being more prone to the disorder compared to the rest of the population (NIMH, 2014).
Although schizophrenia may sometimes appear without warning, most of those affected have reported that it develops gradually and often presents a series of warning signs long before severe symptoms begin. The patient may withdraw from society, become more reclusive, emotionless, or indifferent about life, abandon activities they initially found interesting, and become increasingly unconcerned about their appearance (Helpguide, 2014).
Dr. Segal of Helpguide.org (2014) summarizes these early warning signs as follows:
However, the author notes that these signs are common across a wide range of mental disorders, and that medical advice should therefore be sought immediately when such signs become noticeable so that appropriate treatment can be administered.
The symptoms of schizophrenia differ from person to person and may be more severe in some people and hardly noticeable in others (Helpguide, 2014). The severity of symptoms depends on both the pattern of symptoms and the duration for which the condition remained untreated (Helpguide, 2014). These symptoms can be categorized into three types: cognitive symptoms, negative symptoms, and positive symptoms.
Positive symptoms cover the psychotic behaviors of schizophrenic persons that are non-existent in otherwise healthy persons (NIMH, 2014). These symptoms cause patients to develop wrong perceptions of reality, such that they are unable to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal. They include:
Hallucinations: Perceptions that a person feels, smells, hears, sees, or experiences as real, but which exist only in their minds and cannot be experienced, seen, heard, smelled, or felt by other people (Helpguide, 2014; NIMH, 2014). The type of hallucinations experienced may differ from patient to patient; however, voices have been found to be the most common type of schizophrenic hallucinations (Helpguide, 2014; NIMH, 2014; Geekie, 2009). In this case, the subject hears voices (often of people they know) warning them of danger, ordering them to do things, or talking about their behavior and past actions. At times, the voices talk to each other and are mostly abusive or vulgar (Helpguide, 2014).
Delusions: False beliefs that a person holds despite adequate evidence proving they are not true (Helpguide, 2014; NIMH, 2014). More than 90 percent of schizophrenic patients experience delusions, some of which may be quite bizarre (Helpguide, 2014). The NIMH (2014) identifies several examples of these bizarre delusions—beliefs that people on television are either directing messages specifically to them or publicizing their thoughts to others; beliefs that people are trying to harm them; beliefs that they are some prominent historical figure, and so on.
Dr. Segal of Helpguide (2014) categorizes these schizophrenic delusions into four types:
Delusions of persecution: Vague beliefs that someone is either trying to harm them or is plotting against the people they care about. Some of these beliefs are bizarre—for instance, the belief that someone is trying to poison them by delivering harmful radioactive substances through their drinking water.
Delusions of Reference: False beliefs that they are the specific target of some event that to other people may seem neutral; for instance, the vague belief that a character on television or radio is sending a message specifically to them.
Delusions of Grandeur: False beliefs that they are someone else, especially prominent historical figures such as Jesus Christ. Additionally, the patient could have beliefs that they have extraordinary powers that other human beings can never have—for instance, the ability to speak with God directly.
Delusions of Control: Belief that some external force or power is controlling their thoughts and actions. For instance, such a person may falsely believe that someone is planting ideas into their head or a radio figure is broadcasting their thoughts loudly for others to hear.
Movement Disorders: A schizophrenic person may display agitated body movements, characterized by either catatonia (where they neither move nor respond to others) or repeated motions (NIMH, 2014).
Thought Disorders: A schizophrenic person may display dysfunctional or unusual ways of thinking, where they are unable to connect ideas in a way that makes sense (NIMH, 2014). Further, they may create neologisms, talk in a garbled manner that other people may not understand, or stop speaking abruptly, arguing that the thought they intended to express has been taken out of their head.
Negative Symptoms cover those behavioral aspects that are regarded as normal in healthy individuals but are absent in schizophrenic persons (Helpguide, 2014). The most common ones include:
Cognitive Symptoms are relatively harder to detect compared to the other two categories; the NIMH (2014) expresses that they can only be detected through tests used to measure an individual's level of emotional distress. They include:
The actual causes of schizophrenia are yet to be fully understood; nonetheless, the disorder is widely believed to result from an interaction of several environmental and genetic risk factors.
Genetic Factors: Schizophrenia is hereditary, and one has a higher likelihood of developing the disorder if one or more of their first-degree relatives have been diagnosed with it (Helpguide, 2014).
Environmental Factors: Genetic elements predispose an individual to schizophrenia, but it is these environmental factors that "act on this vulnerability to trigger the disease" (Helpguide, 2014). These environmental factors include:
It is believed that these factors induce stress, thereby increasing the body's production of cortisol, the schizophrenia-triggering hormone (Helpguide, 2014).
"Clinical procedures and medication options"
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