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  • Essay / Schizophrenia: causes, symptoms, diagnosis, treatment

    INTRODUCTIONSChizophrenia is a serious mental illness. Patients experience progressive personality changes and a breakdown in their relationships with the outside world. They have disorganized and abnormal thinking, behavior, and speech and become emotionally numb or withdrawn. have with family or at school. The person seems less able to handle “minor” stresses in the usual way. This can become extreme over months or years (sometimes called negative symptoms). Alternatively, the person may develop elaborate constructs for interpreting the world, as they see it, which may reflect things that are only in their mind (sometimes called productive or positive symptoms, which in the extreme may take the form of illusions or auditory symptoms). hallucinations). » (Schizophrenia: a background sketch http://www.biopsychology.uni-essen.de/Background%20Sketch(1).htm) People who suffer from schizophrenia can present with a very wide range of symptoms which can cause great distress. distress to themselves and their health. their families. These symptoms can take many forms, including: • “Positive symptoms” (abnormal experiences), such as hallucinations (seeing, hearing, feeling something that is not really there), delusions (false and usually strange beliefs) and paranoia (unrealistic fear). • “Negative symptoms” (absence of normal behavior), such as emotional withdrawal, lack of motivation and pleasure. • Cognitive dysfunction (problems with concentration, learning skills and memory). The lifetime risk of a person with schizophrenia is about 1%, and most people experience their first symptoms between the ages of 15 and 35. “Schizophrenia is a chronic, serious and disabling brain disease. About 1 percent of all populations develop schizophrenia during their lifetime. In the vast majority of cases, the illness appears between the ages of 15 and 25, making schizophrenia the leading cause of permanent disability in adolescence. Schizophrenia causes suicide in about 10 percent of patients, usually before the age of 30. This makes the disease a leading cause of suicide among young people and responsible for more deaths than AIDS, SIDS and MS combined. (NISAD: A middle of paper...... weeks or even a few days. There are many potential consequences of schizophrenia. Some people have only one episode of schizophrenia and make a full recovery while others have several. Some people may need care and support throughout their life. Unfortunately, treatment usually consists of antipsychotic treatment, counseling, family support and rehabilitation. Medication can help control many. symptoms. need to take medication for the rest of their lives.BIBILOGRAPHY1) Convergence of biological and psychological perspectives of cognitive coordination in schizophrenia, Phillips, William A. and Silverstein, Steven M. Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2003) 26, 000-0002) Genes Unravel Mystery of Schizophrenia, Reuters, August 31, 2004 http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1188741.htm3) NISAD: A Schizophrenia Research, http://www .nisad.org.au/ schizophrenia/default.asp4) Schizophrenia: a background sketch http://www.biopsychology.uni-essen.de/Background%20Sketch(1).htm5) SCHIZOPHRENIA.COM http://www .schizophrenia.com/newsletter/buckets/diag.html