Schizophrenia

From Psy3241

Schizophrenia (from the Greek roots schizein "to split" and phrēn "mind") is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that affects almost 2 percent of the U.S. population in their lifetime. This mental illness is characterized by impairments in perception that include hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized behavior. Unlike some speculations, schizophrenia does not mean "split personality". Schizophrenia affects both men and women, men usually earlier than women, anywhere from the late teens to early thirties. Rare cases of schizophrenia have also been reported in children.

At the beginning, schizophrenia was characterized in three ways which were disorganized, catatonic and paranoid. Now there have grown to be 5 sub-classifications that go into diagnosing schizophrenia which include: disorganized (hebephrenic), catatonic, paranoid, residual, and undifferentiated.

There are many areas of the brain that are affected when schizophrenia is detected. The basal ganglia which is involved in movement, emotions, and sensory information, can lead to hallucinations and paranoia. In the frontal lobe that controls problem-solving and critical thinking, difficutly in planning and organizing thoughts may occur. The limbic system that is involved with emotions can contribute to agitation. The learning and memory part of the brain, or the hippocampus, can be affected. The occipital lobe, or the visual part of our brain, can also lead to hallucinations. Also, the auditory system that allows us to understand speech, can create auditory hallucinations.

Symptoms & Signs

There are positve (productive) and negative (deficit) symptoms of schizophrenia. Positive symptoms include the following: psychotic episodes, which is a displacement from what is real and unreal; delusions, or false judgements or beliefs; hallucinations, which are strong subjective perceptions of an object or event which is non-existent that may affect any or all sensory perceptions; disorganized speech or behavior, and thought disorder or cognitive dysfuntion. Negative symptoms on the other hand include: social and occupational dysfunction, lack of motivation, withdrawl, and loss of concentration, loss of emotional tone or reaction, and the inability to articulate. For schizophrenia to be taken into consideration, symptoms should be evident for about 6 months. Eugen Bleuler, who originated the term schizophrenia, referred to it as a split between subjective feeling, or affect, and the thought being experienced.

Treatments

Although, schizophrenia has been seen to have genetic factors, there is still no determination of what causes this disease. However, there are many medications, such as antipsychotic medication, that help reduce the symptoms so schizophrenic people can live a happy and independent life. Along with medication, there is also what is called supplemental therapies which include psychosocial or cognitive therapy, rehabilitation day programs, peer support groups, and nutritional supplements that can help. More intense therapies are electroconvulsive therapy and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). A healthy diet and even amino acids and antioxidant vitamins such as glycine or sarcosine supplements can be used at treatments.

History

The term schizophrenia is a relatively new word that originated less than 100 years ago, however, the disease has been said to have been around for all mankind. Schizophrenia was first identified as an actual mental illness by Dr. Emile Kraepelin in 1887 but he described the disease as "dementia praecox". It wasn't until 1911 that a Swiss psychiatrist named Eugen Bleuler named the actual disease as schizophrenia. Since then, the definition of schizophrenia continues to change as we learn more about this mental illness.