An Insight Into Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe disorder which disables the brain. It is said to affect abut 1% of the population. Symptoms emerge in men in their late teens and early 20s and in women in their mid-20s to early 30s. They rarely occur after age 45 and only rarely before puberty.



In young people the first signs can include a change of friends, a drop of grades, sleep problems, and irritability. But since these types of behavior is shown by normal youngsters, so diagnosis is difficult at this stage. In young people who go on to develop the disease, this is called the prodromal period.



Schizophrenia has been known to affect both men and women equally at the same rates. People who suffer from schizophrenia believe that they hear voices which others don't hear and feel that others are trying to cause harm to them. They go through various experiences which make them afraid, withdrawn and nervous. They cannot perform simple tasks and others perceive them to be lazy until their condition is diagnosed. Schizophrenics may not make sense when they talk and may sit for hours without any activity.



The symptoms of schizophrenia fall in 3 categories, namely: positive symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive symptoms. Positive symptoms are easy to spot behaviors which include hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, and disorders of movement. Positive symptoms vary depending on whether the patient is receiving treatment or not. Negative symptoms include immobile facial expression, monotonous voice, lack of pleasure in everyday life, decreased ability to plan and sustain any activity and less interaction. Cognitive symptoms are subtle and can be detected by neuropsychological test. They include poor executive functioning, inability to sustain attention and problems with working memory.



People that have schizophrenia are not prone to violence and they prefer to be left alone. Various studies shows that if people have no record of criminal violence and are not substance abusers before they develop schizophrenia, then they are not likely to commit crimes after they become ill.



There are treatments available to relieve the symptoms of this disorder but some symptoms remain. Loads of research is being undertaken to find the reason and proper cure of this problem and hopefully researchers will come up with a wonder drug which will completely cure this disease. Schizophrenia patients can be treated with antipsychotic medicines, but though these drugs improve the lives of many patients, they do not completely cure schizophrenia. Effectiveness of drugs varies from person to person and so trial and error method has to be employed to see which drug is most effective on a particular patient.



A great website called VideoJug.com has some interesting free films on the issue of Schizophrenia, if you want to learn more on the condition.