This blog will aware you about Schizophrenia disorder. Firstly, it will discuss what is Schizophrenia. Then it will discuss the main Causes of Schizophrenia. Secondly, it will discuss the Symptoms of Schizophrenia and the Stages of Schizophrenia. Thirdly, It will explain the Treatments and Precautions of Schizophrenia in detailed form. Lets discuss the Causes, Symptoms, Test, Precautions and Treatment for Schizophrenia.
1. Definition of Schizophrenia:
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally. Schizophrenia may result in combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.
People with schizophrenia feel insecure and make every situation difficult in their mind so the patients can suffer from hurting hallucinations and negative thoughts about every situation they are facing in life.
Schizophrenia is a serious disorder. People suffering from this disorder, may cause inconvenience for their nearby people. They may create fuss on every small discussion or decision at home.
They may be hyper at every small issue and can harm people from whom they are arguing with so This may be serious at some points and if diagnosis is positive, we should take care of the patient. Patients should be treated with therapy to make their thoughts positive and to work against their hallucinations and delusions.
Schizophrenia patients need lifelong treatment so if we treat the patient in early stages, they can become able to manage their symptoms to keep them under control and to build self-control on their thoughts and reactions on everything they face.
The patients should be taught to be positive and calm about everything they are exposed to whether it is a feeling, decision or situation. This blog tells you about Causes, Symptoms, Treatment, Test and Precautions for Schizophrenia.
2. Causes of Schizophrenia:
Following are some causes of Schizophrenia:
Brain Chemistry:
Abnormality in the functioning of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are responsible for brain’s chemical activity so if your brain is not working well, you can be prone to schizophrenia.
Heredity:
Schizophrenia can transfer into the families as a genetic component. If your family has a history of schizophrenia so it can be exposed to you very easily through genes.
Brain Abnormalities:
Abnormalities in brain structures can cause schizophrenia so if you have any type of abnormalities in brain, it can be very dangerous and makes you sensitive against disorders like schizophrenia.
Complications during Pregnancy and Birth:
Infections, malnutrition during pregnancy, and birth complications may increase the risk. Any disease or complication during birth or even in pregnancy period, can be the cause of Schizophrenia in the child.
These are few causes of Schizophrenia.
3. Symptoms of Schizophrenia:
Following are some of the symptoms of Schizophrenia:
● Delusions:
Delusions involve false thinking that are far away from existing realities so sometimes you think you are harmed or harassed or you think negative comments from people are directed towards you. Or it may a feeling that something bad is going to happen. It is one of the most common symptoms of schizophrenia.
● Hallucinations:
Hallucinations are seeing or hearing things that don’t exist in reality. The patients with schizophrenia have full force for hallucinations. Hallucination can be of any senses but hearing voices is the most common hallucination. But people also see unreal things in case of schizophrenia.
● Disorganized Thinking:
Disorganized thinking is inferred from disorganized speech. Effective communication can be impaired, and answer to questions may be partially or completely unrelated. Rarely, speech may include meaningless words that can’t be understandable, sometimes known as a word salad.
● Extremely disorganized or abnormal motor behavior:
This may show in a number of ways, from childlike silliness to unpredictable agitation. Behavior isn’t focused on a goal, so it’s hard to do tasks. Behavior can include resistance to instructions, inappropriate or bizarre posture, a complete lack of response, or useless and excessive movement.
● Negative Symptoms:
This refers to reduced or lack ability to function normally so patients may neglect hygiene or appear to lack emotion. Person may lose interest in everyday activities, socially withdraw or lack the ability to experience pleasure.
Symptoms may vary from severity and type. Symptoms may start from the age of mid 20s and stay throughout their life. Mostly all the symptoms are negative and teasing. People around schizophrenia patients feel uncomfortable and their home mates are irritated from them.
4. Stages of Schizophrenia:
There are three stages of Schizophrenia:
1: Prodromal Stages:
This is the first stage of Schizophrenia. This is the stage before the stage when psychotic symptoms are visible in a person. A person undergoes behavioral and cognitive changes that can progress with passing time. This is the prodromal stage of Schizophrenia so Its symptoms include anxiety, irritability, neglecting personal hygiene etc.
2: Active Stage:
This is the stage after prodromal stage of Schizophrenia. In this stage, the psychotic symptoms starts to occur in the patient so this stage makes a person extremely irritable and disturbed through hallucinations, delusions, excessive or useless movement, and many other extreme symptoms that can make others realize that there is a problem with the patients.
3: Residual Stage:
Residual stage occurs after the active stage. In this stage, the patient get less severe and less extreme symptoms than the active stage. Patients do not face positive symptoms in this stage and all the symptoms are negative, such as low motivation, reduced or absence of face expressions, flat monotone voice and other negative symptoms. It is same as the prodromal stage of Schizophrenia.
5. Schizophrenia Tests:
There are three kinds of tests for Schizophrenia:
Imaging Tests:
These are the computerized tests to rule out problems like stoke, brain injuries, tumors etc.
Blood, Urine and Cerebrospinal fluid Tests:
These tests provide us information about chemical changes in the bodily fluids that explains your behavior.
Brain Activity Tests:
In this test, Electroencephalogram (EEG) detects and records the electrical activity in your brain. It is useful to rule out other mental disorders too.
6. Precautions for Schizophrenia Patients:
Experts couldn’t discover the real reason behind schizophrenia. But as it is diagnosed or symptoms are found in any person, they should get medical help and counselling as soon as possible. Because we treat schizophrenia in early stages its symptoms can be taken under control and through therapy, the patient can work on their normal functioning in their daily life. Schizophrenia patients are always in need of attention from everyone around them. They should be given enough attention by listening everything they are saying whether it makes sense or not.
People around them should make them realize that what thoughts are right and what thoughts or delusions are wrong. People should be very careful dealing with these patients because they can be extremely hyper or extremely sensitive on any issue they are facing. We should get immediate mental help, for the patients as there is diagnosis of this disorder. Because being late can cause a great effect on the life of patients.
7. Treatment of Schizophrenia:
There is no proper cure for schizophrenia. But the introduced treatments helps to control the severe and extreme symptoms of schizophrenia in a patient. Otherwise, the symptoms may grow denser and denser with passing time. Following are some of the treatments for Schizophrenia:
● Anti-Psychotic Drugs:
These are the specialized drugs for psychological issues that controls the chemical activities of the brain so It really helps in controlling the symptoms at a certain extent. These drugs are for treating any mental illness such as PTSD, depression, etc.
● Other Medications:
Other medications can be to treat schizophrenia along with the Anti-psychotics so these medicines varies according to changings in the symptoms and the stage of schizophrenia in the patients. These normal medicines also helps to control the symptoms of Schizophrenia.
● Psychotherapy:
There are many psychotherapies that uses psychological concepts to treat the mental disorders through negotiating with the patient, through sessions, through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy etc. This helps in knowing he extent of the mental illness and to treat it.
● Electroconvulsive Therapy:
ECT is used when no treatment can be used to cure the mental disorder of the patient. This treatment uses electric current exposed to the scalp of the patient, which stimulates or alter the brain activity to control the extreme symptoms of the mental illness.
These are few treatments for Schizophrenia.
8. Conclusion:
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that may cause negative thoughts, delusions and hallucinations in the patients. People have no awareness about schizophrenia and take it as normal habits or behaviors. But the fact is that schizophrenia must be treated with medical help and should be dealt with psychologists. People with schizophrenia may become dangerous for the people at patient’s home and at his workplace. We should treat this condition in early stages because it can be unbearable if left untreated. By early treatment, we can control these symptoms at a great extent. This blog explained the Causes, Symptoms and Precautions of Schizophrenia.
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