What Is Schizophrenia
What is Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that has been recognized throughout recorded history. It affects about 1 percent of Americans.
People with schizophrenia may hear voices other people don’t hear or they may believe that others are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them. These experiences are terrifying and can cause fearfulness, withdrawal, or extreme agitation.
Causes of Schizophrenia
Researchers suspect a biological (either genetically or environmentally) basis for schizophrenia, possibly an imbalance in brain chemicals that regulate thought and emotion. A sibling or a parent with schizophrenia increases the likelihood that a person will have the disease.
It’s not known what causes schizophrenia. However, researchers believe that an interaction of genetics and environment may cause schizophrenia. Problems with certain naturally occurring brain chemicals, including the neurotransmitters dopamine and glutamate, also may contribute to schizophrenia.
Symptoms Of Schizophrenia
Distorted Perceptions of Reality
People with schizophrenia may have perceptions of reality that are strikingly different from the reality seen and shared by others around them. Living in a world distorted by hallucinations and delusions, individuals with schizophrenia may feel frightened, anxious, and confused.
Cognitive symptoms (or cognitive deficits) are problems with attention, certain types of memory, and the executive functions that allow us to plan and organize. Cognitive deficits can also be difficult to recognize as part of the disorder but are the most disabling in terms of leading a normal life.
Over time, it becomes difficult to function in daily life. You may not be able to go to work or school. You may have troubled relationships, partly because of difficulty reading social cues or others’ emotions. You may lose interest in activities you once enjoyed.
Treatment of Schizophrenia
Patients with schizophrenia often do not respond to treatment or only partially improve and remain functionally impaired. While medication has been found to be effective for the treatment of “positive” symptoms of the disease, treatment of the “negative symptoms” of depression (including lack of energy, motivation, and emotional range) has historically not been very successful. In nearly 25 percent of those patients, the condition is so refractory to neuroleptic pharmacotherapy that they require custodial care.
First, ensure that your loved one is taking prescribed medications. One of the most common reasons that people with schizophrenia relapse into a new episode is that they quit taking medication. Family members might see much improvement and mistakenly assume medications may no longer be needed. That is a disastrous assumption. A later psychotic outbreak will likely happen
The large majority of people with schizophrenia show substantial improvement when treated with antipsychotic drugs. Some patients, however, are not helped very much by the medications and a few do not seem to need them.
Therapy of Schizophrenia
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has been shown to be good for a person with schizophrenia.
Psychodynamic therapy is quite controversial. The actual therapy does not seem to work so well.
When a person suffers from schizophrenia, it is helpful for the whole family to get support. This usually reduces stress and worry, and helps people cope.
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