Essay on Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is affecting people more now than a few decades ago. This illness is across the US and is present in every culture. People are now aware and understand how the illness can be devastating to one’s life. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder of the brain but it is highly treatable. In the US the total amount of people affected with the illness is about 2.2 % of the adult population. The average number of people affected per 1000 total population is 7.2 % per 1000, which means a city that is consists of 3 million people will have approxiamately 21,000 people suffering from schizophrenia. People with mental illness should seek early treatment to be stabilized with medications. During a 10 year period 25% of schizophrenics

Schizophrenia is a serious debilitating mental illness in which the victim is afflicted with bizarre delusions and prominent hallucinations. The delusions are profoundly invalid beliefs, and the hallucinations are equally invalid perceptions. There is also a disordering of the reasoning process, disordered emotional expression, and loss of motivation for work and social living. Typically, the illness starts in adolescence or early adulthood and, if untreated, usually worsens with age. (Lickey, Gordon, 1991)

When I lived in Germany, I had a friend who played on my High School tennis team. On a sunny afternoon after our tennis lessons we decided to drink an ice tea and have a little snack at the tennis snack bar. We started talking about tennis strategies, but my friend, Thomas, was kind of depressed and sad. When I asked him what was really bothering him, he started tell me about his sick mother. He tried to explain her disease to me, but I could not understand it. He said, “ my mother is suffering from persecution mania and in addition, she sometimes talks about things that make no sense. Nevertheless, I saw Thomas again after the summer holidays and I asked him how his mother was doing now. He responded with a very sad voice and also had

SCHIZOPHRENIA Schizophrenia, from the Greek word meaning “split mind”, is a mental disorder that causes complete fragmentation in the processes of the mind. Contrary to common belief, schizophrenia does not refer to a person with a split personality or multiple personalities, but rather to a condition which affects the person’s movement, language, and thinking skills. The question of whether schizophrenia is a disease or collection of socially learned actions is still a question in people’ mind. People who are suffering from schizophrenia think and act in their own the world and put themselves in a way that is totally different from the rest of society. In other words, they have lost in touch with the reality. Most schizophrenics accept

Insanity, then, is inordinate or irregular, or impaired action of the mind, of the instincts, sentiments, intellectual, or perceptive powers, depending upon and produced by an organic change in the brain.

Over the last few decades Schizophrenia has become embedded in mainstream vernacular as any behavior or emotional response that is out of touch with reality. However even with its popularity heightened through movies and headline news stories, schizophrenia is still one of the most enigmatic and least understood disorders of the brain. With current research focused on the role of neurobiology and functioning on a cellular level, investigative analysis has merited new innovations towards its source, however a single organic cause for the disorder still eludes scientists. Although the foundation of the affliction is still unknown, its effects are well documented and over the next few pages will show the changes in the brain as the disease

Beecher (2009) states that a medical model perspective has dominated throughout the mental health practice. The medical model also known as the (biomedical model), impacts the course of treatment available to individuals with schizophrenia (Beecher, 2009). The literature shows that the perception of schizophrenia has commonly been informed from a medical model paradigm (Beresford, 2005; Lightburn, 2005), which views schizophrenia as a disorder of the brain in the central nervous system which can be fixed through pharmacological and physical treatment (Beecher, 2009). The medical model of schizophrenia arose as the reaction to historical notions that individuals with a mental illness were possessed, mad and at fault for their illnesses (Beecher, 2009). The medical model has also been criticized for being too limited and too problem focused and simplistic and not accounting for a person’s external environment (Ashford et al., 2006; Sayce, 2000 as cited by Beecher, 2009). Many individuals exhibit false misconceptions and hold relativity little knowledge about people living with a mental illness (Bell et al. 2006; Mason & Miller 2006). Many of these misconceptions are constructed amongst health care professionals and the

In this week’s readings chapter twelve is about schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder in which personal, social, and occupational functioning deteriorate as a result of strange perceptions, unusual emotions, and motor abnormalities. This disorder is very interesting, but also kind of scary to me. They literally end up in their own world, losing contact with reality. With that, they also experience hallucinations or delusions, which can cause them to do abnormal, possibly dangerous actions. These symptoms must last six months or more before the person can be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It will affect 1 out of 100 people in the world during ones lifetime. This disorder, unlike many others, is just as common among men and women,

Schizophrenia is a mental illness which affects millions of people throughout the world. Scientists have begun to understand more and more about the possible causes, predisposing factors, types, and possible treatments for schizophrenia. (Torrey, 1995) It is very rare for schizophrenic symptoms to appear before the age of 12 but it does occur. Recently, there has been a growing interest in childhood schizophrenia. It is less than one-sixtieth as common as the adult-onset type but the characteristics are very similar. Childhood schizophrenia also tends to be harder to treat and to have a worse prognosis than the adult-onset form. (Rapoport, 1997)

Schizophrenia is a life-long disorder that affects about one percent of the population (Mueser & McGurk, 2004). The cause of this mental illness is still unclear. Studies have suggested that Schizophrenia does not arise from one factor but from a combination of genetic, environmental, and social factors (Liddle, 1987). People diagnosed with Schizophrenia struggle to deal with a multitude of symptoms that make it difficult to function (Mueser & McGurk, 2004). Antipsychotic medications are a popular treatment of the symptoms of Schizophrenia (Mueser & McGurk, 2004). Research is constantly being done to develop these medications to enhance the quality of life of those diagnosed with Schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia as a Biological Disorder As well as the biological approaches there are physiological, psychological and environmental explanations. New theories of schizophrenia are constantly being developed each having their own advantages and disadvantages. How do we know however, which one is correct? The biological explanation suggests that schizophrenia is produced by an unfortunate combination of genes or is due to physical problems in the brain.

Schizophrenia is not yet fully understood, but it is known that it is characterized by extreme disturbances in many vital areas, including behavior, emotions, speech, perception and thinking. The term schizophrenia means

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder of the brain, which is incurable but treatable to live a close to a normal life. There are different types of schizophrenia and they each have different symptoms and affect a person's life in different ways.

Gagan Fervaha, BSc; Konstantine K. Zakzanis, Ph.D.; George Foussias, MD, Ph.D.; Ariel Graff-Guerrero, MD, Ph.D.; Ofer Agid, MD; Gary Remington, MD, PhD

Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder that causes severe mental disturbances which disrupt ones thoughts, speech, and behavior. According to Paul Thompson, Associate Professor of Neurology, one percent of the world’s population suffers from this disorder. There is no one specific cause of schizophrenia, because it is caused by a combination of problems during development. It is a disorder which not only affects the patient, but their family and society as well. Schizophrenia can be a debilitating disorder, however, there are many treatments that can allow people who suffer from it to lead normal lives.