Family Therapy
Family therapy can greatly decrease relapse rates for the schizophrenic family member. Supportive family therapy can bring the rate to below 10 percent. This therapy encourages the family to talk through problems, in order to discuss and specify the problem, to list and consider solutions, and to chose and put into place the best solution.
Group Therapy
Group therapy can cause Positive results and are more likely to be obtained when group therapy focuses on real-life plans, problems, and relationships.Talking about the side effects of anti-psychotic drugs helps too. This supportive group therapy can be helpful in decreasing social isolation and increasing a sense of reality.
Psychotherapy
Used as a guide to a good medication plan. It can also help to learn needed social skills, and support the person's daily and weekly activities and goals. This is advice, education, setting limits, and testing with the therapist. Therapy can help a person gain the confidence to take care of themselves and live a better life.
Treatment
medication
Psychiatric drugs are the biggest part of treating Schizophrenia. Usually a Schizophrenic has to take a lot of medication too. for example Clozaril for for bad and paranoid thoughts, Thorazine for mood changes, Olanzapinefor hallucinations and delusions, and abilify for depression.
Effects
On society
Homelessness - As a third of the homeless are mentally ill and a large part of that is made up by schizophrenics.
Crime - Schizophrenics are more likely to behave violently and are two to seven times more likely to commit general crimes.
Attack - While Scizophrenics are more likely to commit crimes, they are even more likely to be attacked. Their unusal behavior makes them targets for bullying and violence
On the person
Relationship problems - Relationships usually fail because people with schizophrenia often withdraw and isolate themselves. Paranoia can also cause a person with schizophrenia to be suspicious of friends and family.
Trouble with normal daily activities - Schizophrenia causes a lot of disruptions to activity, because of social difficulties and because everyday tasks become hard, and sometimes impossible to do. A schizophrenic person’s delusions, hallucinations, and rapid thoughts typically prevent them from doing normal things like bathing, eating, or running errands.
History
Family members may feel embarrassed about their loved one’s bizarre behavior in public. discomfort with the consumer’s disorganized behavior, may make the family may become socially isolated,
withdrawing from helping their loved one. An individual’s difficulty in maintaining employment often causes financial stress for the family. Spouses may be overwhelmed with responsibilities in caring for
the loved one, and feelings of anger and resentment may arise. Children may assume adult responsibilities at an early age. All of these are especially difficult since the patiant usually is distant from the family members or thinks they're out to trick or harm them.
The first antipsychotic drug, chlorpromazine, became available in the 50s, and opened up an era of progress for schizophrenia. Since the advance of antipsychotic drugs, the use of electroconvulsive therapy in schizophrenia has become rare.
In todays society Schizophrenia has become manageable and nearly controllable. With a lot of time and effort the disease can be put at bay and aschizophrenic person can live a normal life. Ill talk more about this in treatment.
Alcohol and drug abuse - People with schizophrenia oftendevelop problems with alcohol or drugs, which are often used to self-medicate, or relieve symptoms. They may also be heavy smokers, which causes problems because cigarette smoke can interfere with the effectiveness of medications prescribed for Schizophrenia.
Increased suicide risk - People with schizophrenia have a high risk of attempting suicide. Any suicidal talk, threats, or gestures should be taken very seriously. People with schizophrenia are especially likely to commit suicide during psychotic episodes, during periods of depression, and in the first six months after they’ve started treatment.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s psychiatrists tried to induce fevers in their patients, sometimes by injections of sulphur or oil. Other treatments included sleep therapy, gas therapy, electroconvulsive or electroshock treatment, and prefrontal leucotomy(the removal of the part of the brain that processes emotions). They didnt know it was hereditary.
the disease was first identified as a discrete mental illness by Dr. Emile Kraepelin in the 1887, but Schizophrenia can be traced to the old Pharaonic Egypt. the illness itself is generally believed to have accompanied mankind through its history. Its supected that people with this illness were killed for 'angering god' and it used to be thought you went mad as punishment. so you were evil.
On family
The impact on families is mostly the common tendency of people with schizophrenia to deny that they are ill, and to take the family’s efforts to get help as unnecessary interference or a plot to hurt them. This is often supported in the patient’s mind by delusions of persecution. Unless the person gains some insight into their condition, these symptoms can cause a non-compliance with medication, and can cause the long-term disability such as Unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, physical deterioration, and crime and imprisonment are some of the outcomes of untreated schizophrenia.
Family disruption is often intensified by the parents or siblings looking for a reason why the illness has happened. This sometimes leads to the ‘shame and blame’ syndrome, causing falling outs between family members. It is difficult for such families to accept the illness is nobody’s fault.
Abnormal brain structure & chemical imbalance
Enlarged brain ventricles are seen schizophrenics, pointing to a lack of the normal volume of brain tissue. There is also evidence of abnormally low activity in the frontal lobe, for planning, reasoning, and decision-making. There are also abnormalities in the temporal lobes, hippocampus, and amygdala of Schizophrenics.
Extreme stressors like
-Prenatal exposure to a viral infection
-Low oxygen levels during birth
-Exposure to a virus during infancy
-Early parental loss or separation
- Physical or sexual abuse in childhood
Stress
adoption studies say that inherited genes make a person more vulnerable to schizophrenia and then environmental factors plus this vulnerability start to trigger the disorder. As for the environmental factors involved, more research is pointing to stress, during pregnancy or at a later stage of development. High levels of stress are believed to trigger schizophrenia by increasing the body’s production of the hormone cortisol.
Causes
It's not known what causes schizophrenia, but researchers believe that a combination of genetics and environment contributes to development of the disorder. Problems with certain naturally occurring brain chemicals, including neurotransmitters called dopamine and glutamate, also may contribute to schizophrenia.
Genes
Schizophrenia has strong hereditary. Individuals with a first relative who has schizophrenia have a 10 percent chance of developing the disorder, as opposed to about the 1 percent chance of the general population. While schizophrenia runs in families, about 60% of schizophrenics have no family with the disorder. Individuals who are genetically predisposed to schizophrenia don’t always develop the disease. In identical twins there is a 65 percent chance that if one twin has it, then the other will too
Delusions - beliefs that are not real; false personal beliefs that are not subject to reason or contradictory evidence. The patient may firmly believe something, even though there is incontrovertible evidence that it is false. En example may be a belief that a neighbor is plotting to kill or poison the patient.
Condenscention - sometimes the patient may seem patronizing; perhaps they may feel they know stuff other people don't and subsequently assume such a manner.
Symptoms
-Condenscention
-Suicidal thoughts
-detachment
-Anger/violent outbursts
-Social withdrawlment
-Malnutrition
-insomnia
-Delusions
-auditory hallucinations-Voices in head
-Extreme paranoia
-Trouble planning/socializing
-Clummsiness
-Thinking others are out to get you
-depression
Detachment - the patient may sometimes be physically or emotionally; reserved and remote (aloofness)
Symptoms
DSM-IV states a person needs two symptoms for six or more months and must have trouble functioning in one or more areas of society to be classified with Schizophrenia.
1 in 125 people have Schizophrenia
Paranoid and Undifferentiated
Schizophrenia
Paranoid Schizophrenia - a subtype of
Schizophrenia characterized by delusions
Undifferentiated Schizophrenia - symptoms of Schizophrenia that are not sufficiently formed or specific enough to permit classification of the illness into one of the other subtypes.