Symptoms And Treatment Of Schizophrenia Essay

The first description of schizophrenia was first given by Emil Kraepelin in 1896, and not until 1952 the “false” idea of what that disease was ceased to exist.

Schizophrenia occurs in people from all cultures and from all walks of life. Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects a small portion of the population in the world. When schizophrenia is active there are many different symptoms that can appear. Some symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, trouble with thinking and concentration, and lack of motivation. When these symptoms are treated, most people with schizophrenia will improve over time with treatment. With the different studies we are able to see how schizophrenia works in different ways. The different ways being what is happening in the brain when a person has schizophrenia. Along with the different treatments from counseling to medication what works better.

Schizophrenia is a neurological disorder that affects the cognitive functions of an individual. The cause of this illness is unknown, but there are several theories of how an individual may acquire schizophrenia. Because there are many symptoms of the disease and because the symptoms can vary quite dramatically among several individuals and even within the same individual over time, the diagnosis of schizophrenia can be quite difficult.

According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the definition of Schizophrenia is “a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves” (2016). In 1887, Dr. Emile Kraepelin was the first to acknowledge Schizophrenia. Patients were having memory loss and not acting like themselves. When studying patients, he believed that it was much like dementia except in this particular case, the disease formed earlier in life. Dr. Kraeplin even named it "dementia praecox" meaning “early dementia”. After more research was conducted on this disease, Eugen Bleuler came to conclusion that this was not even close to dementia. So, in 1911, he changed the name to Schizophrenia.

In 1809, physician John Haslam published an account of what he considered “A form of insanity”. Haslam described many symptoms that are relevant to modern day schizophrenia including delusions of grandeur and hallucinations. During the latter part of the nineteenth century, a German psychiatrist named Emil Kraepelin expanded on Haslam’s views and gave a more accurate description of schizophrenia as we know it today. Kraeplin started off by combining terms including different types of insanity under one term: Catatonia, and delusions of grandeur and persecution: paranoia. Kraepelin also separated dementia praecox from manic depressive illness, or bipolar disorder (Barlow,

Schizophrenia which affects approximately 1 percent of the population, usually begins before age 25 and persists throughout life. The illness is a life long debilitating condition for about 40% of patients and is enormously costly in both social and economic terms. Despite the presence of delusions, hallucinations and cognitive impairment which characterize the illness, overall life expectancy is not altered (although there is a significantly increased risk-of suicide in the early years).

In 1898, a German psychiatrist, Emil Kraepelin, described the confusion with the side effects and named this disorder in the Latin expression, dementia praecox. Later in 1908, Bleuler, a Swiss psychiatrist and eugenicist, initially named the expression "Schizophrenia". Schizophrenia comes from the mix of the Greek words for split (skhizein)

The term ‘Schizophrenia’ was coined in 1911 by Swiss psychiatrist, Eugen Bleuler. He disagreed with Kraepelin. He found that symptoms appear later in life as well and they differ from those of dementia. He then gave the illness a different name. Schizophrenia translates to split mind because he believed that people were battling with reality and their minds.

Although there is controversy in regards to which type of treatment is most successful in regards to initial episodes of schizophrenia disorder, there are also studies looking into whether or not there are issues associated with receiving no treatment at all. Ho et al. (2003) created a study to determine the effect of a first episode of schizophrenia remaining undetected and untreated for more than one year. It was hypothesized by Ho et al. (2003) that if psychosis has toxicity to the human body, psychosis could have detrimental effects on cognitive functioning and the structure of the brain if left untreated. This study included 156 subjects, all who had not had more than three months of previous antipsychotic treatment and all of which were in the midst of their first episode of schizophrenia. The mean amount of time in which the participants went untreated for psychotic symptoms at the beginning of the experiment was 74.3 weeks. Ho et al. (2003) stated that participants were put through a battery of thirty six cognitive tests in which their scores were scored against other standardized scores. The participants were divided into two groups around the median amount of time in which they were untreated since the onset of their symptoms, which was thirteen weeks (Ho et al., 2003). Neurocognitive tests included tests of verbal, memory and motor skills. Ho et al. (2003) stated that in comparison to each other, the two groups did not differ in any of the cognitive categories

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.

(Szasz,1982, p.4, p.29) In 1900, the term schizophrenia, now used worldwide, was used to describe the condition that one out of every hundred people had. This statistic remains the same today. Through research and years of study, the world has a better understanding of schizophrenia, its forms, characteristics, symptoms, types, possible causes, and treatments, if any. ( Pierce, 1990. p.263 )

Approximately 22% of the American population suffers from some kind of mental disorder at any given time. (Passer and Smith, 2004) Schizophrenia is one of the most serious of these mental disorders, and there are many different kinds of treatment. While all mental disorders offer diagnosis and treatment challenges, few are more challenging than schizophrenia. It is both bizarre and puzzling, and has been described as “one of the most challenging disorders to treat effectively.” (Passer and Smith, 2004, 534)

This research paper takes a look at a case study in which the individual is suffering from delusional disorder. Because delusional disorder and schizophrenia share many of the same characteristics, it is easy to mistake one for the other; therefore, the psychology professional must look at all the present symptoms as well as the history of the individual to make a clear diagnosis. When using the pharmacological approach in treating delusional disorders, the psychology professional must consider the ways in which the medication will alter the brain chemistry and influence behavior in the patient.

Treatment for schizophrenia The most common form of treatment is a combination of medication and support. Support means things like individual counselling, information and support from the person’s family and friends. People with schizophrenia can also benefit a lot from a stable living environment, structure, a meaningful job, study, hobby and being kept from as much stress as possible.

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.