Can Schizophrenia Be Treated
Yes. The main types of treatment are counseling and medicines to lessen or stop psychotic symptoms. Medicines will control psychotic symptoms in most people. In milder cases of schizophrenia, medications may not be needed. Medicines can:
- Lessen or stop hallucinations
- Help the person tell the difference between hallucinations and the real world
- Lessen or stop false beliefs
- Lessen feelings of confusion
- Help the person think more clearly
Lessening of these symptoms can help the person resume his or her normal lifestyle and activities. Medicines for schizophrenia need to be taken regularly, even after symptoms are gone. Some people with schizophrenia will stop taking their medicine because they believe the medicine is no longer needed, or they dislike the medication’s side effects. Psychotic symptoms often return when medication is stopped. Do not stop taking medicine without the advice of your healthcare provider.
Discuss any concerns you have about side effects with your healthcare provider.
The Cognitive Neuroscience Of Schizophrenia
Some people with schizophrenia also show deficits in what is referred to as social cognition, though it is not clear whether such problems are separate from the cognitive problems described above or the result of them . This includes problems with the recognition of emotional expressions on the faces of other individuals and problems inferring the intentions of other people . Individuals with schizophrenia who have more problems with social cognition also tend to have more negative and disorganized symptoms , as well as worse community function .
Which Of The Following Characterize The Disorder Known As Schizophren
13. Which of the following characterize the disorder known as schizophrenia?
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How Is Schizophrenia Diagnosed
If symptoms of schizophrenia are present, the doctor will perform a complete medical history and sometimes a physical exam. While there are no laboratory tests to specifically diagnose schizophrenia, the doctor may use various tests, and possibly blood tests or brain imaging studies, to rule out another physical illness or intoxication as the cause of the symptoms.
If the doctor finds no other physical reason for the schizophrenia symptoms, they may refer the person to a psychiatrist or psychologist, mental health professionals trained to diagnose and treat mental illnesses. Psychiatrists and psychologists use specially designed interviews and assessment tools to evaluate a person for a psychotic disorder. The therapist bases their diagnosis on the person’s and family’s report of symptoms and their observation of the person’s attitude and behavior.
A person is diagnosed with schizophrenia if they have at least two of these symptoms for at least 6 months:
- Delusions
One of the symptoms has to be
- Delusions
- Hallucinations
- Disorganized speech
During the 6 months, the person must have a month of active symptoms. Symptoms should negatively affect them socially or at work, and canât be caused by any other condition.
Statistical Methods And Measurement Caveats
The prevalence rate of schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders is difficult to estimate using typical household survey methods alone. Accurate assessment of schizophrenia is best achieved using clinicians trained in the diagnosis of mental illnesses. The U.S. prevalence studies cited here were selected based on their use of U.S. population samples and use of methods that involved clinical diagnosis, either via clinical reappraisal studies or clinical record studies.3,4,5
Individuals with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders may be under-counted in prevalence estimation studies. These individuals may be under-represented in household surveys because they may reside in prisons, other institutions, or may lack a permanent address. Similarly, some people with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders may not be fully reflected in medical records data because they may not have a documented diagnosis, and/or may receive little or no health care.
Information on statistical methods and measurement caveats can be found in the papers cited on this page and listed in the reference section. Below we provide additional background information for large datasets used in two studies cited on this page.3,5
National Comorbidity Survey Replication
- For more information, see NIMH NCS-R study page.
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There Are Four Types Of Schizophrenia And They All Affect The Sufferer In A Different Way Knowing These Differences Will Help You Understand This Mental Disorder Better
Going through life with the burden of mental illness on your shoulder is hard enough when you suffer from something thats easy to pinpoint. But when were talking about schizophrenia, things get complicated. Still, understanding the disorder and different types of schizophrenia is an important step towards active healing.
Brain Areas Associated With Schizophrenia
In addition to neurotransmitters, specific neural circuitry in various areas of the brain has been linked to schizophrenia. Disregulation of neurotransmitters in the association cortex may explain why people with schizophrenia are not able to properly sort or filter information. The medial temporal lobe and hippocampus are associated with symptoms such as lack of focus and emotional regulation. The thalamus can also affect symptoms in various ways: a decrease in the size of the thalamus may lead to hallucinations, and a breakdown in one of the neural pathways within the thalamus is associated with disjointed associations. Finally, the basal ganglia also affect schizophrenia. This area is involved with the integration of information from cortical areas and may also influence disjointed perceptions of environmental information.
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What If I Am Not Happy With My Treatment
If you are not happy with your treatment you can:
- talk to your doctor about your treatment options,
- ask for a second opinion,
- get an advocate to help you speak to your doctor,
- contact Patient Advice and Liaison Service and see whether they can help, or
- make a complaint.
There is more information about these options below.
Treatment options
You should first speak to your doctor about your treatment. Explain why you are not happy with it. You could ask what other treatments you could try.
Tell your doctor if there is a type of treatment that you would like to try. Doctors should listen to your preference. If you are not given this treatment, ask your doctor to explain why it is not suitable for you.
Second opinion
A second opinion means that you would like a different doctor to give their opinion about what treatment you should have. You can also ask for a second opinion if you disagree with your diagnosis.
You dont have a right to a second opinion. But your doctor should listen to your reason for wanting a second opinion.
Advocacy
An advocate is independent from the mental health service. They are free to use. They can be useful if you find it difficult to get your views heard.
There are different types of advocates available. Community advocates can support you to get a health professional to listen to your concerns. And help you to get the treatment that you would like.
The Patient Advice and Liaison Service
Complaints
You can find out more about:
What Kind Of Symptoms Might People With Schizophrenia Have
People with schizophrenia may have a number of psychotic symptoms. These symptoms can come and go in phases, or they can happen only once or twice in a lifetime. When the illness begins, psychotic symptoms are usually sudden and severe.
During psychotic phases, the person may still understand parts of reality. He or she may lead a somewhat normal life, doing basic activities such as eating, working and getting around. In other cases, the person may be unable to function. Symptoms during psychotic phases include:
- Seeing, hearing, feeling or smelling things that are not real .
- Having strange beliefs that are not based on facts . For example, the person may believe that people can hear his or her thoughts, that he or she is God or the devil, or that people are putting thoughts into his or her head.
- Thinking in a confused way, being unable to make order out of the world, shifting quickly from one thought to the next.
- Having emotions, thoughts and moods that do not fit with events.
People with schizophrenia also may:
- Have a lot of energy or be overly active, or become “catatonic,” a state in which the body becomes rigid and cannot be moved.
- Talk in sentences that do not make sense.
- Not wash or groom.
- Cut themselves off from family, friends and the outside world.
- Be unable to function in school, work, or other activities.
- Lose interest in life.
- Be very sad or have mood swings.
- Have dulled emotions.
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How Common Is Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is more common than most people think. About 1 in 200 of the people in the United States will develop schizophrenia over the course of their lives. It’s also important to know that schizophrenia has many different symptoms and can show up in many different ways.
Schizophrenia is not the same as a “split personality.” A split personality is another type of mental illness. Split personality is much less common than schizophrenia.
Regulator Of G Protein Signaling
Attention focused on RGS-4 following a microarray study finding that the brains of schizophrenics showed decreased RGS-4 expression , and because of the location of the gene in a linkage region on chromosome 1q21q22 of RGS-4 . The function of RGS proteins is to decrease the effect of G protein coupled receptor agonists. This could link with current theories on the etiology of schizophrenia relating to activity of dopamine, serotonin or metabo-tropic glutamate receptors.
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Current Methods For Genetic Analysis Of Complex Disorder
Available methods generally rely on the analysis of DNA markers in subject to determine whether the distribution of marker alleles in some way predicts the presence of disease. Some studies consider DNA variations within or near candidate gene. Many groups are now examining maps of the DNA markers throughout the genome to identify chromosomal regions likely to contain loci that have a major influence on susceptibility. These studies rely on the phenomenon of linkage, as exemplified by the fact that when ill parent transmits a disease-causing allele to children, numerous alleles at nearby loci are also transmitted because no recombination event has occurred in the region .
The Dopamine Theory Of Schizophrenia
The dopamine hypothesis of schizophrenia is a model used by scientists to explain many schizophrenic symptoms. The model claims that a high fluctuation of levels of dopamine can be responsible for schizophrenic symptoms. The simplest version of this theory suggests that schizophrenia is associated with an increase of dopamine in the central nervous system.
Additional research has identified two dopamine pathways in particular that are associated with the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia. The first is the mesolimbic system, which affects areas regulating reward pathways and emotional processes the second is the mesocortical system, which affects the prefrontal cortex, areas that regulate cognitive processing, and areas involved with motor control. Excess activity in the mesolimbic pathway and lack of activity in the mesocortical pathway are thought to be responsible for positive and negative symptoms, respectively.
The dopamine hypothesis has helped progress the development of antipsychotics, which are drugs that stabilize positive symptoms by blocking dopamine receptors. The fact that these medications have been shown to treat psychosis supports the dopamine theory.
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Positive Symptoms Of Schizophrenia
In this case, the word positive doesnât mean good. It refers to added thoughts or actions that arenât based in reality. Theyâre sometimes called psychotic symptoms and can include:
- Delusions: These are false, mixed, and sometimes strange beliefs that arenât based in reality and that the person refuses to give up, even when shown the facts. For example, a person with delusions may believe that people can hear their thoughts, that they are God or the devil, or that people are putting thoughts into their head or plotting against them.
- Hallucinations: These involve sensations that aren’t real. Hearing voices is the most common hallucination in people with schizophrenia. The voices may comment on the person’s behavior, insult them, or give commands. Less common types include seeing things that aren’t there, smelling strange odors, having a funny taste in your mouth, and feeling sensations on your skin even though nothing is touching your body.
- Catatonia: In this condition, the person may stop speaking, and their body may be fixed in a single position for a very long time.
Here Are Some Things You Can Do To Help Your Loved One:
- Help them get treatment and encourage them to stay in treatment
- Remember that their beliefs or hallucinations seem very real to them
- Tell them that you acknowledge that everyone has the right to see things their way
- Be respectful, supportive, and kind without tolerating dangerous or inappropriate behavior
- Check to see if there are any support groups in your area
Some symptoms require immediate emergency care. If your loved one is thinking about harming themselves or others or attempting suicide, seek help right away:
- Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK or text the Crisis Text Line .
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What Is The Outlook For People With Schizophrenia
With proper treatment, most people with schizophrenia can lead productive and fulfilling lives. Depending on how severe the condition is and how well they get and stick with treatment, they should be able to live with their families or in community settings rather than in long-term psychiatric hospitals.
Ongoing research on the brain and how brain disorders happen will likely lead to more effective medicines with fewer side effects.
What Can I Do To Manage Schizophrenia
People deal with their experience in different ways. You might need to try different things before finding something that works.
Support groups
You could join a support group. A support group is where people come together to share information, experiences and give each other support. Hearing about the experiences of others can help you feel understood. This may help you feel less alone and boost your self-confidence.
You might be able to find a local group by searching online. Rethink Mental Illness have support groups in some areas. You can find out what is available in your area, or get help to set up your own support group if you follow this link:
Or you can call our advice service on 0808 801 0525 for more information.
Recovery College
Recovery colleges are part of the NHS. They offer free courses about mental health to help you manage your experiences. They can help you to take control of your life and become an expert in your own wellbeing and recovery. You can usually self-refer to a recovery college. But the college may tell your care team.
Unfortunately, recovery colleges are not available in all areas. To see if there is a recovery college in your area you can use a search engine such as Google. Or you can call our advice service on 0808 801 0525 for more information.
Peer support through the NHS
- side effects,
- recognising and coping with symptoms,
- what to do in a crisis,
- meeting other people who can support you, and recovery.
Self-management techniques
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Is It Possible To Recover From Schizophrenia
Many people who live with schizophrenia have recovery journeys that lead them to live meaningful lives.
Recovery can be thought of in terms of:
- clinical recovery, and
- personal recovery.
What is clinical recovery?
Your doctor might have talked to you about recovery. Some doctors and health professionals think of recovery as:
- no longer having mental illness symptoms, or
- where your symptoms are controlled by treatment to such a degree that they are not significantly a problem.
Sometimes this is called clinical recovery.
Everyones experience of clinical recovery is different.
- Some people completely recover from schizophrenia and go on to be symptom free.
- Some who live with schizophrenia can improve a great deal with ongoing treatment.
- Some improve with treatment but need ongoing support from mental health and social services.
What is personal recovery?
Dealing with symptoms is important to a lot of people. But some people think that recovery is wider than this. We call this personal recovery.
Personal recovery means that you can live a meaningful life.
What you think of as being a meaningful life might be different to how other people see it. You can think about what you would like to do to live a meaningful life and work towards that goal.
Below are some ways you can think of recovery.
What can help me recover?
You may want to think about the following questions.
The following things can be important in recovery.
Patient Discussion About Schizophrenia
Q. how to treat schizophrenia?
A.
Q. How can we treat a schizophrenic person? A member of my family is a schizophrenic and was diagnosed when he was 25 years old. Today at almost 60 he refuse to be treated and certain that nothing is wrong with him. The problem is me and my family feels that his illness is getting worst and we can’t help him. How can we get treatment for him and if not what is the next phase we should expect to encounter?
A.
Q. Am i going to get schizophrenia and what are the signs towards it? My mother is 50 years old and i knew she was bi polar and tonight i found out she has schizophrenia too from a nurse at the hospital she was sent to for going crazy out of no where tonight. I am very different from her and i am 17 years old. My dad side of the family has no disorders. How likely am i to develop schizophrenia? What are the first symptoms? Can i see signs now? and any other info.
A.
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