Schizophrenia a Mental Disease

Early this week I was at a special committee meeting in the park when a man walked up to our location and started to disturb the meeting. When the director of the group confronted him he shaped is fingers like a gun, pointed it towards the director and started shouting; “I am the general and you are the enemy”. He was there for about two minutes repeating the same thing when another group member says, “What is wrong with this Schizo?”

So today I have decided to blog about Schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain.

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder that can take many forms but there are two main categories of symptoms. Two main categories of symptoms associated with schizophrenia are positive symptoms (Type 1 symptoms) and negative symptoms (Type 2 symptoms).

Some characteristics of positive symptoms are delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thoughts and speech, and disorganized behaviour.

Some signs of negative symptoms are severe reduction or complete absence of speech and unable to achieve goal-oriented task.

The most common behaviours of schizophrenia that are easy identified are;

Hallucinations – individuals hear voices or see things that are not present.

Violence and Aggression – individual might isolate themselves from others because of lost of trust and might become violent and aggressive.

Paranoid – This is an unusual behaviour, individuals believe that others are trying to hurt them or persecute them. As a result they may keep to themselves and even hide in isolated areas in the environment.

Some theorists suggest that schizophrenia is as a result of biological factors while other says it is developed based on some psychological factors.

Can Schizophrenia be treated?

Yes! Schizophrenia can be treated but it involves more than one treatment methods.

Type of Treatments

1)      Biological Treatment – Antipsychotic Drugs

2)      Psychological and social treatments – Behavioural, cognitive and social interventions, family therapy.

Did you know that schizophrenia is mostly associated with men rather than women?

Thanks for reading today’s post.

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