Schizophrenia And Support Systems: A Case Study

Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that places considerable burden on the individuals who have it, their families, and society (Eack 2012). Someone who has schizophrenia may have the following symptoms, but not all: faulty perceptions, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental fragmentation (Oxford Dictionary). The two most commonly used interventions are drug and family intervention. Often times patients with a

The documentary series True Life aired their fourteenth episode on season … “I have schizophrenia.” In this episode three young adults, Joshua, Ben, and Amber, are followed through their daily routines recording how this illness affect their lives and how they manage to handle their mental illness. Each one of them experiences this illness different and that influences their decisions on medical care and the way they interactions others and the outside world. Society often sees people that suffer from schizophrenia as weird and crazy. It is common for society to want to separate them out from the rest of society by putting them in mental hospitals.

Schizophrenia is a complex psychotic disorder evident by impaired thinking, emotions, judgment and behaviors. The person’s grasp of reality may be so disordered that they are unable to filter sensory stimuli and may have intense perceptions of sounds, colors, and other features of their environment. Although there are different levels of severity in symptoms, the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine (Fundukian, Ed., 2014) states that schizophrenia may typically interfere with a person 's ability to think clearly and to know the difference between reality and fantasy. People with schizophrenic symptoms have hallucinations and delusions, and often have difficulty with everyday life. It is a complicated disease that is not well understood and carries significant stigma for its sufferers.

Every day, schizophrenia not only disrupts the lives of hundreds of thousands of Canadians, but it also places a significant strain on our society. This disorder affects approximately 300,000 Canadians, and places a burden on not only the patient, but their families, the clinicians and other health care professionals. Deinstitutionalization, importance on legal rights, ineffective policy, and community based treatment all contribute to the way services for schizophrenia are delivered in Canada. Symptoms of Schizophrenia can affect daily functions of which people rely on. These symptoms can vary in severity which creates obstacles such as being able to maintain employment, relationships, and engage in social network; which results in a lower standard of living among these individuals.

One of the biggest contributors for poor healthcare is the stigma against mental health. This stigma allows healthcare providers to view those with a mental illness as having low relevance, thus creating disinclination towards providing adequate resources and/or care. This negative stance, based on misinformation and prejudice creates those that have a mental illness to lose their self confidence. Because of this loss, people with mental illness decide not to contribute to their health or livelihood. In the past fifty years, many advances have been made in mental healthcare. However, with the attached stigma, many people choose to not seek out treatment.

Schizophrenia is a long term psychotic disorder which severely affects the way a person thinks, behaves and their perception of the world. This illness has a negative impact on an individual’s social and occupational functioning and usually results in the affected person withdrawing from their family and friend (Trigoboff, 2008). The current DSM-V classification explores this definition in further detail and allows for reliable diagnosis in patients with schizophrenia.

The lack of treatment for mental illnesses — due partly from the stigma with which it is associated with — comes with a number of public issues: economically,

While we know schizophrenia is characterized by a multitude of distinctive and predictable symptoms, in some case, sufferers can still live a productive life and are able to hold down part-time and full time positions with a support system comprised of outside agencies designed to diminish the woes experienced by the abnormal behavior would otherwise

A European standpoint “suggests that schizophrenia reflects an autistic relationship to reality or lack of attunement to others” (Lysaker, Wickett, Wilke, & Lysaker, 2003). All of the preceding factors contribute to the difficulties many people with schizophrenia face functioning in social and occupational roles. These difficulties, in turn, limit their ability to adjust to community life, even in the absence of psychotic behaviors (Nevid, Rathus, & Green, 2003). Self-help clubs commonly called clubhouses were created to help patients hospitalized with schizophrenia transition from a hospital setting back into their communities.

This essay focuses on the diagnosis of schizophrenia, a major mental illness with much stigma and misinformation associated with it. World Health Organisation (WHO, 2012) epidemiological evidence suggests that schizophrenia is a mental illness affecting 24 million people worldwide. This essay will define schizophrenia and its characteristic signs and symptoms in relation to cognition, mood, behaviour and psychosocial functioning. The criteria enabling a diagnosis of schizophrenia are explored, as well as contemporary nursing care and pharmacological treatments. The positive and negative signs and symptoms of schizophrenia will be discussed and the treatment and care requirements outlined by the NSW Mental Health Act (2007) are also

This stress could potentially lead to broken relationships, financial loss, lack of personal time, depression, anxiety and constant fear (Barbato 2007). Schizophrenia makes a massive impact on the individuals and others life, therefore it is crucial to seek help and treat the disorder to reduce this impact and ensure a good quality of life is

“The role of social and rehabilitative measures has been proven to be single most effective non-pharmacological intervention for the long term sustenance of [patients with schizophrenia]” (Malik, S. Khan, Ataullah, Rana, & F. Khan, 2016). Schizophrenia is severe disorder than affects a person’s ability to perform normal roles in their life. Because of the symptoms, people have a hard time finding the motivation to engage in enjoyable activities and in social contexts, but engaging in these occupational activities affects health and quality of life in a positive way (Bejerholm & Eklund, 2007). Occupational therapists help people with schizophrenia express their emotions and participate in therapeutic exercises to enhance their skills, boost their self-esteem, and decrease the symptoms that persist with the disorder (Bejerholm & Eklund, 2007).

Mental disorders have enormous effects on the way individuals function and live on a day-to-day basis. Of the many mental disorders, schizophrenia is one of the most disabling disorders that an individual can have. Schizophrenia has a very rare prevalence rate and only affects about 1% of the entire population worldwide. However, it is one of the most incapacitating disorders and individuals with schizophrenia suffer from a variety of symptoms. There are two categories of symptoms that a person with schizophrenia can have: positive symptoms (incomprehensible speech, hallucinations, and delusions) and negative symptoms (affective flattening, alogia, and anhedonia) (Gregory, 2010).

It has been reported that the number of people with mental disorder is increasing in our communities at an alarming rate. Environmental and social changes are among the most mentioned causes of the accelerating rate of mental illness in society (Häfner, 1985). Despite the prevalence, about one fifth of the adult population will battle with mental illness every year ("Facts and figures about mental illness," 2014) and the acknowledgement of authorities mental illness is still given less attention then is needed to treat the problem successfully. Health bodies need to be putting more resources into this area as

The negative stigma of mental health has lightened slightly over the years, however, it has not rescinded entirely. People still have an unmanageable time admitting that they may have a mental disorder and that they require assistance. Human beings struggle with these hindrances openly and also hidden on a daily basis. Therefore, our civilization needs to remove the shame associated with the treatment of mental disorders and work on devising a progressive suitable mental healthcare plan in order to ensure that many live a healthy, happy, and prosperous