Schizophrenia is a mental disorder which is characterized by disturbed mental thoughts in the patient, paranoia, phobias, hallucination, slow dementia and etc. As it is clear from this brief definition, Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness which can leave a patient stranded from performing basic day-to-day activities or even keeping healthy relationships with their close ones. 

Even though there is no particular age where people are vulnerable from suffering from this disease, yet from a common observation and study conducted on the patients, it has been observed that schizophrenia hit men in their early 20 s and early 30 s in case of women. The study also feels that it is impossible for a schizophrenic to be of age younger than 12 or older than 40. According to another study conducted by the universities, the life of a schizophrenic patient is not guaranteed. 

Symptoms of Schizophrenia:

As mentioned above, there is a common pattern in each schizophrenic patient, however, it is next to impossible to diagnose schizophrenia in teenagers since the onset of the disease is symbolized by the patient's constant change of friends or decrease of performance in school, both of which is normal in teen years. Schizophrenics also isolate themselves and become moody which again, is a common instinct of the teenager. However, apart from these, there are other differentiating symptoms as mentioned below which help in the accurate diagnosis of the disease. 

Hallucinating
Delusional
Emotionally dull and disconnected with their loved ones
Negative social life and academic performance
Dementia
Disability of remembering easy-to-learn and remember things
Causes of Schizophrnia

According to the researchers, there are more than one reasons for this disease. Read them all below:

Genetic mutation and inheritance- genetics play an important role in this disease. It needs more than one mutational combination of schizophrenia to happen and that is why it is observed in less than 1% of the population only. Those who have had a family history of schizophrenia are very hard to inherit the disease because patients hardly ever reach the stage of life called marriage. But a family history of psychosis is sure a determining factor. 
Neurotic reason- this reason includes the brain chemistry and important brain chemical such as- dopamine and glutamate.
Drug abuse- it has been revealed that consuming hallucinating and mind-altering drugs during teenage years are greatly responsible for the increase in the number of schizophrenia cases in early 20 s.
Treatment

As it was mentioned above, there is absolutely no way to cure schizophrenia known to man as of yet. However, the only way to approach it medically is by managing its symptoms separately. Such as:

Antipsychotic medication
Psychotherapies Self-help groups
Nursing care

Schizophrenia - What Causes It?

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects how a person sees the world. Schizophrenia makes it difficult for you to distinguish between what is real or unreal. It can stop you from thinking clearly, handling your emotions properly or functioning in a normal way. However, one can manage schizophrenia effectively. The best way is to recognise the signs and symptoms that one might be having. Here is how you can recognise the symptoms of schizophrenia:

Delusions: A delusion is an idea that a person might have despite there being obvious evidence that it is not true or does not exist. These are extremely common in schizophrenia and occur in ninety percent of the people with this disorder. These delusions can be of many types:
Delusion of persecution: When a person believes that someone is out to get them.
Delusion of reference: a very neutral environmental event tends to have a personal meaning to them. They might think that a person on the TV or a billboard is trying to send a message specifically for them.
Delusion of control: In this, a person believes that his or her actions are being controlled from the outside.
Hallucinations: These are sensations or sounds that a person experiences as real when they only exist in that person s mind. Visual hallucinations are relatively more common. These are only meaningful to the person who is experiencing them. These voices or visuals are usually horrific, vulgar, abusive or critical. They tend to increase in intensity when the person is alone.
Disorganized speech: People who suffer from this order have a hard time maintaining or concentrating on certain thoughts. They may start sentences and forget what they were talking about. They might even go off track in the middle of conversations. People with this disorder usually say illogical things and speak incoherently. A patient may also make up words or phrases that only have a meaning to them.
Disorganized symptoms: A person is unable to take care of himself or herself or their work. They face a decline in their overall daily functioning and their behaviours are bizarre and may have no purpose. People with this disorder cannot control their impulses.
Negative symptoms: This refers to the absence of behaviours that usually appear normal to other people. These include lack of expressing oneself emotionally, lack of interest or enthusiasm. These also include speech difficulties or abnormalities as well as their lack of interest in the world.
Schizophrenia can be caused due to many reasons. These include lack of oxygen during birth, exposure to a virus during infancy, physical or sexual abuse, depression, hereditary components or enlarged brain ventricles. This disorder can affect a patient s mental as well as physical health and can endanger the people around them as well as their relationships. Hence, the signs and symptoms should be recognised as early as possible in order to get the right kind of treatment.

Schizophrenia - How To Recognize The Signs?

Schizophrenia is a very serious psychological disorder which influences how a person feels, thinks, acts and reacts. A patient suffering from schizophrenia may experience issues recognising what is real and what is nonexistent; might be lethargic or unresponsive, and may experience issues communicating ordinary feelings in social situations.

The reason for schizophrenia is still hazy. A few theories and speculations about the reason for this disorder include genes (hereditary qualities), biology of the body (the unevenness in the brain s functioning); or persistent viral infections and immune disorders. Some of the problems faced by schizophrenics are as follows:

Delusions: People may feel that somebody is keeping an eye on him or her, or that they are somebody well known and famous.
Development and movement problems: These include behaving in a strange manner, pacing around, posturing or shaking forward and backwards for no reason.
Thought issue: Jumping from one topic to another in an unreasonable manner is also one of the symptoms or challenges of this condition. People may make up their own particular words or sounds.
Hallucinating: Seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing or feeling something that does not generally exist. The most widely recognised symptom is listening to nonexistent voices that give orders or commands to the patients.
Absence of feelings and emotions: An irregular feeling or expression may be experienced. For instance, crying at a joke when a typical reaction would be to laugh at it.
Despite these, some of the other very common problems faced by schizophrenic patients are as follows:

Social withdrawal from family and friends
Problems affecting in the ordinary exercises of life, for example, at work or school
Poor hygiene and lack of cleanliness
Mental shock
Loss of proper sentence formation
Issues deciding
Overlooking or losing things
Issues understanding ordinary sights, sounds, and sentiments.
Moving rapidly starting with one thought then onto the next.
Pacing and strolling in circles
Unreasonable written work, yet without any meaning.
A person with schizophrenia is twice as likely to end up diabetic or experience the ill effects of the chronic obstructive pneumonia disease (COPD) than the general population. Individuals with schizophrenia regularly commit the normal error of attempting to overlook the sickness thinking that it does not exist.

Schizophrenia has crushed a considerable amount of lives throughout the years. The indications of schizophrenia can be exceptionally scary and unnerving. There are different treatment techniques that one can access to improve the lives of the people who experience the ill effects of schizophrenia. Treatment of schizophrenia has, however essentially enhanced throughout the years, and there is no motivation to trust that it will not keep on doing so. In case that you or someone close to you has schizophrenia, look for treatment in light of the fact that your odds of recovery are good and your odds of change are great.

Schizophrenia - Common Problems Faced By A Person Suffering From It!

Chronic health disorders like schizophrenia affect not only the patient, but also the life of their care givers. Though schizophrenia can be treated to improve the patient's quality of life, it cannot be cured. Hence, it falls on the care giver's shoulders to watch out for symptoms of this disease and manage the person and their disorder. What should one do in such a case?

1. Educate yourself: the first step towards looking after a person with schizophrenia is to know the symptoms of the disease. With treatment, these may become better or worse so if you notice any change in the symptoms, bring it to your doctors notice at once.

2. Reduce stress: your goal as a schizophrenic person's caregiver should be to give them a calm environment and boost their confidence. Stress has a negative effect on all people and in schizophrenics this effect is much worse. Hence reduce stress and create an effective support system and structured environment for your loved one.

3. Do not ask the patient to change'his reality: when a person is suffering from schizophrenia, you should not force them to change their behaviour and reality, in order to adjust in the society at large. You should rather support the patient to accept his reality, to be at peace, since there is a very strong genetic component involved in its aetiology. Also, it is important that, both the patient and the family in particular should opt for regular counselling sessions.

4. Regular exercise: schizophrenics need not be cooped up in the house all day. Encourage the patient to go outside and exercise regularly. Exercise reduces stress and produces endorphins that make a person feel energized and happy. This should be complemented by a healthy diet. Minimize the amount of carbs and sugar intake and increase the amounts of omega 3 fatty acids in the patient's diet.

5. Join a support group: joining a support group is a very good idea for both the patient and the caregiver. For the patient, this provides a form of social interaction and for the caregiver is a platform to meet people with similar first hand experiences

6. Encourage treatment: convincing a schizophrenic person to seek treatment can be quite challenging. Suggest treating symptoms of the disorder such as insomnia and lack of energy rather than the disease itself to make the patient feel more comfortable. Give the patient options to choose from to make them feel more in control of the situation.

7. Monitor medication: once the treatment has started, ensure that the patient sticks to the prescription. Maintain a regular schedule by using weekly pill boxes and alarms. Also keep an eye on the possible side effects of these medicines. Ensure that your doctor has a complete list of medicines that the patient takes so that there is no chance of medicines interacting negatively with each other.

8. Prepare for crisis situations: it is always a good idea to have an emergency plan in place. Keep emergency contact details of all the doctors and therapists at hand along with the address and phone number of the closest hospital. Share your situation with friends and family so that in case of an emergency, they can be relied upon to take care of your children and other dependants.

Living with Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental and emotional condition that is characterised by a heavily distorted thought process as well as hallucinations and even extreme fear that borders on paranoia. Let us find out more about this debilitating disease:

Causes:
1. Genetics: genetic factors play an important role in the development of schizophrenia.
2. Environment: possible environmental factors include obstetric complications, the mother's exposure to influenza during pregnancy or starvation. It has also been suggested that stress, trauma even migration can lead to the emergence of schizophrenia. 
3. Neurodevelopmental factors: schizophrenia appears to be a neurodevelopmental disorder. That is changes that cause the illness have been occurring from the earliest stages of development even in utero, and may continue to influence the development of the brain over the first 25 years of life. 

Symptoms: 
This disease has a variety of symptoms include cognitive and emotional ones that can vary in the degree and severity. One of the most common symptoms included hallucinations and delusions where the patient may end up imagining things that do not really exist. The patient may also be gripped by sudden and crippling fear like paranoia, which can be debilitating as far as everyday functioning of the person goes. The symptoms can also interfere with the way a person deals with situations and life skills on a cognitive basis. Withdrawal and hopelessness are also a part of this disease.

Treatment: 
The earliest signs and symptoms must be referred to a psychiatrist. The treatment involves the management of the case of an individual basis along with psychological rehabilitation programs and inclusion of the patient in self-help groups. Housing and employment programs must also be availed so as to keep the patient busy. Also, behaviour therapy will be required in such cases. The mode of counselling should usually be on a one on one basis, although many doctors also suggest that group therapy can help in showing examples of progress so as to encourage the patient to change and get a new lease of life.

Schizophrenia: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Both schizophrenia and autism are considered to be neurological disorders resulting from atypical neural development, occurring due to a variety of causes. Both these disorders have a genetic predisposition that may be due to environmental factors. However, there are a few basic differences between the two disease conditions.

Autism is also known as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by a spectrum of abnormal behaviour. They include persistent deficits in social communication and interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour, interests or activities.

Signs of autism in babies

By 6 months - No social smiles or other warm, joyful expressions; limited to no eye contact
By 9 months - No sharing of vocal sounds
By 12 months - No babbling or use of gestures to communicate; not responding to one s name when called
By 16 months - No use of words
By 24 months - No meaningful or two-word phrases
Signs of autism at any age

Avoids eye contact and wants to be alone
Finds it difficult to understand other people s feelings
Speaks very less or has delayed language development
Echolalia - Repeats words or phrases
Cannot accept change in routine or surroundings
Performs repetitive behaviours like flapping or rocking
Has restricted interests and hobbies
Reacts unusually intense to sounds, smells, tastes, lights, colours etc.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a neuropsychiatric disorder that begins during late adolescence and early adulthood. It is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavioural changes that cause social and occupational dysfunctions.

Signs of Schizophrenia

The symptoms of schizophrenia are usually observed between ages 16 and 30, such as e.g. delusions, hallucinations, thought disorders, movement disorders etc.
Delusions are false beliefs of the patient that may take many forms like delusions of persecution or grandeur. You may feel somebody is controlling you or may think you have extraordinary powers and abilities.
Hallucinations are when the patient hears voices more than seeing, feeling, tasting or smelling random things, which are not actually there.
Thought disorders are when the person jumps from one subject to another for no logical reason.
Some negative symptoms i.e. these are symptoms which are normally present in a healthy individual, but are absent in a schizophrenic patient. E.g. absence of facial expressions, lack of motivation etc.
Cognitive symptoms affect the individual s thought process. They can be positive or negative based on their expression. E.g. poor  executive functioning  which deals with the ability to understand information and make decisions using them, finding it difficult to focus etc.
Although both Autsim spectrum disorder and schizophrenia are interlinked in their causes and neurological background, the symptoms for each disorder are different. 
Consult your physician if you happen to observe any of these symptoms in your loved ones.

Autism & Schizophrenia - What Is The Difference?

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