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Schizophrenia is a serious psychotic illness that can leave a person disabled or with severely impaired functioning. The illness is characterized by severe disturbances in the mind that affect speech, thought, and behavior of the individual. The onset of schizophrenia usually begins during adolescence but anyone can be diagnosed with schizophrenia at any age.
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Schizophrenia is a serious psychotic illness that can leave a person disabled or with severely impaired functioning. The illness is characterized by severe disturbances in the mind that affect speech, thought, and behavior of the individual. The onset of schizophrenia usually begins during adolescence but anyone can be diagnosed with schizophrenia at any age.
What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a chronic illness that has a wide array of symptoms such as nonsensical speech, anger, rage, confusion, etc. But the key characteristic of schizophrenia is the loss of contact with reality known as psychosis. Schizophrenia can have devastating life-long effects if not treated.
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Prevalence of Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia affects under 1 percent of the global population. That means anyone who lives up to at least 55 years has a 1 in 140 chance of developing schizophrenia during their lifetime. The onset of schizophrenia begins around late adolescence and early adulthood peaking between age 18-30. The onset of the illness also depends on gender. Chances of men developing schizophrenia between ages 20-24, women are 1 in 5, while for women it is 1 in 4.
Symptoms
Symptoms of schizophrenia can range from unstable or irritable mood to loss of sleep to decreased mental and physical performance. More specifically, the onset of the following symptoms are a major indicator of schizophrenia:
1. Delusions
Delusion is a false belief that remains fixed despite contradictory evidence. People with delusions hold beliefs that others in the same environment do not share. It’s not necessary that a person who has delusions is schizophrenic, but delusions is a common symptom of schizophrenia, occurring in about 90 percent of cases.
2. Hallucinations
Hallucination is a sensory experience that is very real to the person having it but cannot be perceived by others around him or her. Hearing, smelling, seeing, or feeling stimuli that do not exist external of the person’s mind. Hallucinations can be scary and dangerous for the person having them and for those around them.
Hallucinations are different from illusions in the sense that illusions are misinterpretations of things that actually exist.
Like delusions, hallucinations are also a common symptom with 75 percent of patients with schizophrenia experiencing auditory hallucinations.
3. Disorganized Speech and Behavior
Delusions and hallucinations are inside the mind of the person, but when these experience take an external form (movement, gestures, words), they can be quite disorganized and make little to no sense – the speech is slurred and goal-oriented movement is impaired.
4. Negative Symptoms
Negative symptoms reflect the absence of those behaviors that were present before the onset of other symptoms. Negative symptoms include losing interest and energy to do goal-oriented tasks (avolition), speaking in a blunt or flat tone (flat affect) or speaking very little (alogia).
Causes
Schizophrenia is highly hereditary. The chances of developing schizophrenia become three to four times higher if your parent has schizophrenia as well. The National Institute of Mental Health states that the following environmental factors as possible causes of schizophrenia as well:
- Exposure to viruses
- Malnutrition before birth
- Problems during birth
- Psychosocial factors
Diagnosis
In order to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, one must meet the diagnostic criteria stated in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder.
Two (or more) of the following, each present for a significant portion of time during a 1-month period:
- Delusions
- hallucinations
- disorganized speech (e.g., frequent derailment or incoherence)
- Grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior
- Negative symptoms (i.e., diminished emotional expression or avolition).
Since the onset of the disturbance, level of functioning in one or more major areas of life (work, school, family) is markedly below the level achieved prior to the onset.
Continuous signs of the disturbance persist for at least 6 months which includes 1 month of symptoms.
Schizoaffective disorder and depressive or bipolar disorder with psychotic features have been ruled out.
The disturbance is not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (drugs, medications, etc).
If there is a history of autism spectrum disorder or a communication disorder of childhood onset, the additional diagnosis of schizophrenia is made only if prominent delusions or hallucinations, in addition to the other required symptoms of schizophrenia, are also present for at least 1 month (or less if successfully treated).
Treatment
Medications are the most common method of treating schizophrenia with over 60 types of medications available. The most common form of medication is called antipsychotics or neuroleptics. Though medications might have side effects, most of the evidence points towards the fact that they help patients.
While medications are effective, they are far from the only method of treatment. Physicians may choose a psychosocial approach of treatment using family therapy, social-skills training, case managers, cognitive remediations, individual therapy, and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).
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