Schizophrenic Case Studies

The True Life episode, I have Schizophrenia, documented the struggles of three adults who suffer from Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective disorder. This paper will focus around Josh and whether he actually has Schizophrenia.

Therapy for psychosis often works best when combined with medication, although this is not always

With proper treatment and support, many people with diagnosed schizophrenia are able to reduce their symptoms, live and work independently, build satisfying relationships and enjoy life. First strategy for establishing an appropriate working relationships with Jason is the denial coping strategy in treatment, the acceptance of the disease and its difficulties. It is necessary to explain to him that just because he has schizophrenia, doesn’t mean he’ll have to be hospitalized. If he is getting the right treatment and sticking to it, he is much less likely to experience a crisis situation that requires hospitalization to keep him safe.

“Recent Advances in Social Skills Training for Schizophrenia” (2006) consists of adapting behavioral proficiency to those with schizophrenia, allowing them to achieve living skills, coping mechanisms, and giving them a sense of freedom from their inner turmoil.

perceives, feels, and acts. Signs of schizophrenia generally begins between adolescence and middle age adulthood. According to Robins, & Regier(1991)

Schizophrenia can be explained biologically through genetic explanations and through neural explanations. Genetic explanations establish that schizophrenia is more common in biological relatives of a person with schizophrenia than a person without. Gotesman (1991) conducted a family study and found that children with 2 biologically schizophrenic parents had a 46% concordance rate with the child becoming schizophrenic, a 13% concordance rate if the children had 1 schizophrenic biological parent and a 9% concordance rate if siblings had schizophrenia. This shows that individuals more closely related to the person with schizophrenia has a higher risk of developing schizophrenia therefore showing the influence of genes the disorder. Although a problem with family studies on schizophrenia are that they lack population validity; small samples have to be used as larger samples with schizophrenic parents are hard to find and therefore results can’t be extrapolated to the general public. In addition, in Gotesman’s study, the concordance rates for children with 2 schizophrenic parents are below 50%, it suggests that there’s no direct genetic link to the disorder suggesting nurture may hold more influence in development.

Mel is a caucasian male of 19 years from a small countryside community who grew up in a disordered atmosphere where sexual abuse seem to be the norm. Through scholarly research of Mel’s behavior and social functioning history, it appears that Mel could be potentially suffering from a Major Depressive Episode. First and foremost, to ensure that this individual receive the proper care and treament, the medical professional should conduct background research pertaining to the demographic and cultural barriers that could potentially henderd the therapuetic process. All assessments should intergrate and include race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and cultural beliefs. Multicultural considerations significantly influences the

Vito was in a major car accident eight months ago. Vito’s friend was intoxicated and driving a car with Vito as well as three other passengers whom were Vito’s friends. Prior to the accident, Vito was a scholar-athlete who was constantly on the honor roll, and well liked by his peers. He was always on the invite list for all of the parties hosted by his peers. Vito was thrown through the windshield of the vehicle that he was a passenger of, thus now he requires a wheelchair to stay mobile. In addition, it is now hard for him to learn new abstract content and requires speech therapy. Vito no longer feels comfortable around his once close friends, is easily tired, embarrassed, treated differently, and cannot play sports and stay active the way that he did prior to the accident. His behavior and outlook on life has drastically decreased and he is now suffering from depression

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that often appears in someone’s early adulthood stage, but it can emerge at any point of time in life. This disorder affects the brain and is considered as psychosis, which is a type of mental illness that makes people with it unable to differentiate between reality and imagination. The first person to identify schizophrenia as a mental illness was German physician Dr. Emile Kraepelin in 1887 and categorized it as dementia that occurs early in life. The term ‘schizophrenia’ was made by Swiss psychiatrist Paul Eugen Bleuler in 1910 because Kraepelin’s definition of schizophrenia is misleading – schizophrenia is not dementia happening in the early stage of life. It is a derivation from Greek words ‘schizo’ and ‘phren’, which means ‘split’ and ‘mind’. However, schizophrenia is not related to multiple personality disorder.

1 out of 100 people is schizophrenic. I am lucky enough to be that 1 as many of you already knew.

Schizoaffective disorder could be diagnosed according DSM-IV that if the patient is with manic ‎episode, major depressive episode or mixed episode along with hallucination, delusions, ‎disorganized speech, disorganized behavior as well as negative symptoms. In order to identify ‎whether patient is in manic episode, there should be an uninterrupted period of illness for one ‎week and the patient is in persistently elevated or irritable mood with symptoms such as inflated ‎self- esteem, decreased need of sleep, distractibility, flight of ideas, more talkative than usual and ‎excessive involvement in pleasureful activities. If a patient is in depressed mood during most of ‎the time for a two-week period with five or more symptoms such as markedly

The complexity of treating psychosis is very delicate, as there are many contributing factors to this mental disorder. As theories continue to evolve through research, today’s evidence of biological and psychopathology disturbances support the complication and treatment psychosis (Preston, O’Neal, & Talaga2017). Although anti-psychotic drugs have revolutionized in treatment of psychotic disorders, positive results in treatment of psychosis was noted in first-line drugs. However, due to the extreme side effects, a second-generation of antipsychotic drugs was developed, with fewer side effects and less seditative, and a greater effectiveness in patient treatment (Preston ,O’Neal,

Schizotypal personality disorder is mostly common in men than women. Patients with Schizotypal personality disorder have severe social and interpersonal deficits. He or she can shows sign of manifest ideas of reference, cognitive and perceptual distortions, socially inept, and paranoia (individual can be very suspicious and anxious). He or she can also shows sign of hallucinations and delusion but only minimal (Halter & Vacarolis, 2014),.

If you were suffering from depression or schizophrenia, which type of therapy (or therapies) would you opt for (or involuntarily receive) and why?

The two diagnosis I considered after my first session with Caleb were Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizophreniform Disorder. Caleb clearly displayed deficits in both social communication and social interaction during our session. Caleb was so socially withdrawn, that his mother, Nina, was the person I communicated with throughout the entirety of our session. Caleb occasionally mumbled responses to some of the questions; his answers ranged from “yes”, “no” to “I don’t know”, although he mumbled thank you to one of my compliments, Caleb definitely displayed deficits in social-emotional reciprocity. Caleb also exhibited deficits in nonverbal communication, avoiding eye contact throughout our entire session, he even avoided eye contact with his