Do you know someone with Schizophrenia?

According to the National Institute of Health. Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that has affected people through history. At any one time, about 7 in 1,000 adults have schizophrenia. The chance of getting Schizophrenia at some point in your life is 1 in 100.

Do you know someone with Schizophrenia?(Cont.)

Schizophrenia tends to affect people for the first time as young adults. The average age for first getting symptoms is 25.(N.I.H)

However, the fact that even if a person shares 100% of the genes (that is, they are an identical twin) there is only a 48% of developing schizophrenia .

(Cont.)

suggests that there are many "environmental" influences that also determine whether a person develops schizophrenia. Environmental - in this definition - includes everything from the nutritional environment or viruses that a baby is subjected to in the womb, to social environment growing up, to teen drug use or stress.

What is Schizophrenia?

According to MentalHealth.com The schizophrenic disorders are characterized in general by fundamental and characteristic distortions of thinking and perception, and affects that are inappropriate or blunted. Clear consciousness and intellectual capacity are usually maintained although certain cognitive deficits may evolve in the course of time.

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Positive Symptoms (Cont.)

• Delusions – false beliefs that have no basis in reality; persecutory, religious, grandiose, reference, somatic

• Hallucinations - false perceptions in the absence of any relevant sensory stimulus; auditory are most common; lack of control over hallucinations is key feature

Positive Symptoms (Cont.)

Disorganized speech – thought-content and thought-form symptomatology; derailment, neologisms, word salad, excessive concreteness

Grossly disorganized behavior – can be manifested in a variety of ways

Catanonia – igidity, negativism, posturing, waxy flexibility; echopraxia and echolalia; excitement

Negative Symptom (Cont.)

According to the Harvard Medical School, These “negative” symptoms are so called because they are an absence as much as a presence: inexpressive faces, blank looks, monotone and monosyllabic speech, few gestures, seeming lack of interest in the world and other people, inability to feel pleasure or act spontaneously. About 25% of patients with schizophrenia have a condition called the deficit syndrome, defined by severe and persistent negative symptoms.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/update0706c.shtml

Cognitive Symptom (Cont.)

According to reliefhealth.org Cognitive symptoms are subtle and are often detected only when neuropsychological tests are performed. They include the following:

poor "executive functioning" (the ability to absorb and interpret information and make decisions based on that information),

inability to sustain attention, and problems with "working memory" (the ability to keep recently learned information

in mind and use it right away) Cognitive impairments often interfere with the patient's ability to lead a normal life

and earn a living. They can cause great emotional distress.

What causes Schizophrenia?

As stated in the National Alliance on Mental Health official website, While an exact cause of schizophrenia is still unknown, researchers do know that the brains of people living with schizophrenia are different from those undiagnosed with the illness. It is too early to classify schizophrenia as either a neurodevelopmental (impairment of the growth and development of the brain) or a neurodegenerative (progressive loss of structure or function of neurons) disorder, as both seem to occur over the course of the illness. Research strongly suggests the emergence of schizophrenia is a result of both genetic and environmental factors.

Types of treatments

1.Institutional 2.Antipsychotic

Medications 3.Theraphy

Institutional (Cont.)

John Hopkins Schizophrenia Center: Conduct research and provides housing for Schizophrenia patients.

Antipsychotic Medication

Antipsychotic medicationsAntipsychotic medications have been available since the mid-1950's. The older types are called conventional or "typical" antipsychotics. Some of the more commonly used typical medications include:

Chlorpromazine (Thorazine) Haloperidol (Haldol) Perphenazine (Etrafon, Trilafon) Fluphenazine (Prolixin). In the 1990's, new antipsychotic medications were

developed. These new medications are called second generation, or "atypical" antipsychotics. One of these medications, clozapine (Clozaril) is an effective medication that treats psychotic symptoms, hallucinations, and breaks with reality. However, Clozaril lowers white blood cell count. Patients have to get a blood test every two weeks.

THERAPHY

According to US National Library of MedicineNational Institutes of Health Many patients with schizophrenia have psychological distress and receive some form of psychotherapy. Several different psychotherapeutic approaches for schizophrenia have been developed and studied. Of these approaches, cognitive behavior therapy has the strongest evidence base and has shown benefit for symptom reduction in outpatients with residual symptoms. In addition to cognitive behavior therapy, other approaches include compliance therapy, personal therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and supportive therapy. Although usually studied as distinct approaches, the therapies overlap with each other in their therapeutic elements.