1 post tagged “what is schizophrenia”

Schizophrenia usually starts between the late teens and the mid-30s, whereas onset prior to adolescence is rare (although cases with age at onset of 5 or 6 years have been reported). Schizophrenia can also begin later in life (e.g., after age 45 years), but this is uncommon. Usually the onset of Schizophrenia occurs a few years earlier in men than women. The onset may be abrupt or insidious. Usually Schizophrenia starts gradually with a prepsychotic phase of increasing negative symptoms (e.g., social withdrawal, deterioration in hygiene and grooming, unusual behavior, outbursts of anger, and loss of interest in school or work). A few months or years later, a psychotic phase develops (with delusions, hallucinations, or grossly bizarre/disorganized speech and behavior).

Schizophrenia has difficulty holding a job or caring for themselves, the burden on their families and society is significant as well. Available treatments can relieve many of the disorder's symptoms, but most people who have schizophrenia must cope with some residual symptoms as long as they live. Nevertheless, this is a time of hope for people with schizophrenia and their families. Many people with the disorder now lead rewarding and meaningful lives in their communities. Researchers are developing more effective medications and using new research tools to understand the causes of schizophrenia and to find ways to prevent and treat it.

Schizophrenia is a group of serious brain disorders in which reality is interpreted abnormally. Schizophrenia results in hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thinking and behavior. People with schizophrenia withdraw from the people and activities in the world around them, retreating into an inner world marked by psychosis. Contrary to popular belief, schizophrenia isn't the same as a split personality or multiple personality. While the word "schizophrenia" does means "split-mind," it refers to a disruption of the usual balance of emotions and thinking.

Schizophrenia is a complex illness. Even experts in the field are not sure what causes it. Some doctors think that the brain may not be able to process information correctly. Genetic factors appear to play a role. People who have family members with schizophrenia may be more likely to get the disease themselves. Some researchers believe that events in a person's environment may trigger schizophrenia. For example, problems (infection) during development in the mother's womb and at birth may increase the risk for developing schizophrenia later in life.

An illness like schizophrenia has been variously described over the years. Falvet in 1851 called it Folie circulaire, Hecker in 1871 called it Hebephrenia, Kahlbaum in 1874 described Catatonia (a movement disorder) and Paranoia. Kraepelin in 1878 pulled the various concepts together into one disease entity which he termed Dementia praecox and said there were four types: simple, paranoid, hebephrenic and catatonic, depending on the clinical presentation. Simple dementia praecox involved a slow social decline, with apathy and withdrawal rather than florid psychotic symptoms - such people became drifters or tramps.

There is no doubt a strong genetic component to schizophrenia - those who have immediate relatives with a history of this or other psychiatric diseases (for example, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, depression, etc) have a significantly increased risk for developing schizophrenia over that of the general population. However, twin studies have shown that simple genetic transmission is far from the whole story - if one identical twin has schizophrenia, the risk for the other twin (who has the exact same genes as his/her sibling) is only about 50%.