In the wide wide world of cyberspace, you are likely to encounter all types of individuals as you blog through life! You will have to excuse my demented sense of humor up there, but schizos are no laughing matter. Chances are as a blogger, you will occasionally encounter people with mental illness, including perhaps schizophrenia, on your own blogsite. They just come out of the woodwork, seem unstable in their blogging habits or content, perhaps seeming to lose control and leave angry or empty messages that are totally out in left field, having written outbursts with less than savory blog content, which most later remove, or can even perhaps come off paranoid to people who just pass by and read their comments. Some just have delusions of grandiosity and feel that they have to be the #1 blogger and at the expense of other bloggers, and I am not just talking about Blogstream! In my experience, some people suffer from the delusion that somebody is always "out to get them" and running an underground circuit of hatred around them, either in their real life or in their blogging life, as perhaps they are not getting the attention they crave.
Unfortunately, people do not have to pass a psychiatric test for admission to any website or to hold down a blog. I am not talking about those every day life trials and tribulations, or even depressive episodes due to situations beyond the normal, but of something much darker ... deeper ... something that lurks within.
So, today I would like to touch on schizophrenia. Here's a Q & A.
# What is schizophrenia?
Answer:
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects some 2.2 million American adults, most often before the age of 30. It interferes with the way a person acts, thinks, and feels and frequently causes difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is imaginary. This, in turn makes patients prone to delusional beliefs about themselves or others. Schizophrenia also affects ordered thinking, making it difficult to concentrate, maintain attention span, or develop normal motivation. It can also affect the ability to experience normal emotions in social situations, often causing a person to become unusually unresponsive or withdrawn.
# What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?
Answer:
Symptoms are divided into the following categories:
1. Delusions -- This includes false ideas about other people, commonly thinking that someone is spying on them, cheating them, or out to harm them, even when evidence is to the contrary. A delusion can also be a false belief about oneself – such as believing you are a famous person.
2. Hallucinations -- This includes seeing, hearing, or smelling something that is not there, or sometimes even tasting or feeling things that are not real. The most common schizophrenic hallucination is hearing voices that give commands or make comments to the patient about their behavior.
3. Disorganized thinking/nonsensical speech -- Conversation jumps radically from topic to topic and may contain phrases that are totally irrelevant, or made up words. Sometimes conversation may seem deep and intellectual, when it is really illogical.
4. Social withdrawal and apathy -- Disinterest in their life or surroundings is frequently coupled with a lack of motivation and emotional unresponsiveness, particularly in a social situation.
# What is meant by "positive" and "negative" symptoms of schizophrenia?
Answer:
Positive symptoms are those attributes that are added to the personality, such as delusions or hallucinations, indicating the person has lost touch with reality. In this sense positive does not mean "good", but instead refers to "extra" or additional brain activity that should not be there.
Negative symptoms are those which are indicative of an "under-functioning" personality. Examples include a lack of emotional input or expression, or an inability to socially interact or take pleasure from interactions with others.
# Do all people with schizophrenia act the same?
Answer:
No. There are five types of schizophrenia, some overlapping, but each affecting behavior in a different way. Moreover, there are varying degrees within each category.
The five types are:
1. Paranoid schizophrenia -- This results in feelings of persecution that sometimes alternate with grandiosity.
2. Disorganized schizophrenia -- This causes primarily incoherent speech or thought, but may not involve delusions.
3. Catatonic schizophrenia -- In this instance there is total withdrawal from reality causing a person to not speak, assume bizarre body positions, and appear to be in almost a trance-like state.
4. Residual schizophrenia -- While classic signs of schizophrenia may no longer be a problem, such as delusions, patients still have very little or no motivation or drive and little interest in life.
5. Schizoaffective disorder -- This is a combined diagnosis that involves the classic symptoms of schizophrenia along with those of another mental illness, most commonly bipolar disorder (manic depression).
**** We interrupt this regularly scheduled schizophrenic report to bring you a commercial from our sponsor, dementia. According to this report I just typed a nursing home sends in a 79-year-old man to the emergency room because of combative behavior at 4: 30 in the morning. Why couldn't they just give him a Valium or something? anyway, doctor says patient has a stiff posture and resisted examination. He was uncooperative and grumbled and cursed when awakened. He is a do not resuscitate, and staff let him sleep until almost noon checking on him intermittently; however there arose a clatter in the ER when this patient suddenly got up, went across the hall, and proceeded to get into bed with a female patient, whom of course he did not know! Therefore ensuing a ruckus because he was resistant and uncooperative with attempts to put him back into his own room and bed. Therefore multiple staff was called in to assist to and Posey restraints placed for his combativeness. Dementia and schizophrenics often are living in their own little world! and now let's continue ***
# How is schizophrenia diagnosed?
Answer:
Most people with schizophrenia have a clusters of symptoms, some of which can overlap with other mental illnesses, including depression, or more commonly, bipolar disorder. For this reason, diagnosis by a psychiatrist or other mental health professional can take up to six months, during which time the patient's behaviors are monitored. In schizophrenia the patient virtually never has periods where their behavior would be considered normal.
# What are the risk factors for schizophrenia?
Answer:
The main risk factor is heredity, with the incidence rising from 1% in the general population to nearly 10% in those whose parents or siblings have the disorder. The risk is also elevated but to a lesser degree if grandparents, aunts, uncles, or cousins have schizophrenia. The twin of a person with schizophrenia has a 50% risk of developing it as well.
Women are at greater risk than men, and both sexes are most prone during their teens and early 20s. Schizophrenia rarely develops after age 45, or in young children, though some as young as 7 have been occasionally diagnosed.
# What causes schizophrenia?
Answer:
No one knows for certain, but researchers believe it is a combination of genetics, which increase the risk, and environmental influences, which trigger the genetic predisposition. There is also evidence that changes in body chemistry during puberty may also play a role. More recently, researchers have linked schizophrenia to brain developmental problems that occur in a fetus when a woman contracts certain viruses during pregnancy – most notably influenza, toxoplasmosis, and rubella. Research also implicates genital or reproductive infections present in the mother's body at the time of conception with increasing the baby's future risk of developing schizophrenia. Brain injuries occurring after birth and poor parenting skills are not responsible for a child developing schizophrenia.
# How is schizophrenia treated?
Answer:
The mainstay treatment is antipsychotic drugs, medications that work to alter brain chemistry in a particular way. Older antipsychotic drugs, including Thorazine, Haldol, and Prolixin, worked well but were fraught with side effects including persistent muscle spasms, tremors, and muscle rigidity. In the 1990s a new class of drugs known as “atypical antipsychotic medicines” was developed. The first, Clozaril, remains extremely effective even in those patients who do not respond to other medications. However, it also causes a problem known as “agranulocytosis,” a serious loss of white blood cells, requiring weekly or biweekly blood tests. Drugs developed after Clozaril include Abilify, Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel, and Zyprexa. These newer drugs are linked to weight gain and may increase the risk of diabetes.
Generally speaking, most patients respond to antipsychotic drugs quickly, with hallucinations improving within days, and delusions under control within a few weeks. Most symptoms substantially improve after a few weeks of treatment.
# Are people with schizophrenia dangerous to themselves or others?
Answer:
If symptoms are under control and medication regimens are adhered to, there is very little chance that a person with schizophrenia will be a threat to themselves or others. Moreover, most people with schizophrenia are not particularly prone to violence with most preferring to be left alone. Studies also show that if a person has no history of criminal violence prior to developing schizophrenia, and they are not substance abusers, they are highly unlikely to commit a crime after their illness develops. If someone with paranoid schizophrenia does become violent, it is most often directed at a family member and usually occurs within the home.
However, people with schizophrenia are at an increased risk for suicide and attempt to take their life more frequently than the general population. About 10% of people with schizophrenia are successful in their suicide attempts, most particularly young adult men.
I have typed many reports of this disorder. Schizophrenia is really nothing to ignore and treatment is a necessary requirement. However, bloggers, beware of those undiagnosed cases running around wild and loose among us.
and have a great day!
