What is Schizophrenia? Symptoms, Causes, Treatment

Schizophrenia is a severe mental health disorder and it makes to perceive and interpret reality abnormally. It badly impacts your routine life functions. Today, we’ll discuss what is schizophrenia; its symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and treatment.

What is Schizophrenia? 

Schizophrenia is a serious mental condition that usually exhibits its symptoms in early adulthood or late adolescence. Along with affecting your emotions, thinking, and speech, it badly impacts your daily routine life functions and social interactions.

According to a statistic by NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health), schizophrenia affects roundabout 0.25% to 0.64% of people in the USA, it’s uncommon you can say. It not only impacts the person’s life but also the lives of other people around them.

A person usually exhibits its symptoms in the early 30s and late teens, and men develop its symptoms earlier than women. Some people start showing unusual and strange behavior in their early childhood, and they become apparent and significant when you grow old. However, the other types of people show their symptoms suddenly. It’s a lifelong disorder, but effective treatment could help you manage the symptoms.

Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia impacts different people differently, some of the common symptoms are as follows;

• Hallucination, delusions, and psychosis
• Difficult to focus on one thing
• Limited motivation
• Difficult to express emotions
• Confused speech that doesn’t make any sense or is difficult to understand

Some people have low focus, anxiety, or out of sorts before exhibiting the symptoms

Delusions

Delusion is a state of mind when a person believes something to be true, but there’s no proof of it. For instance, a delusional person believes in the following;

• Of having extraordinary capabilities and powers
• Others are trying to control us from a distance
• Someone or something is following you
• He/she is a very important person

Hallucination

Hallucination is a state of delusion that impacts all of your senses; hearing voices is very common in hallucination. For instance, a person could smell, taste, feel, or see things that are not present there in reality.

Confused Speech & Thinking

It’s when a person’s thoughts, speech, and mind keep on wandering from one subject to another without any rational reason. It would be very difficult to understand or make sense of whatever the person is saying. There could be problems in the person’s memory that make it difficult for him/her to use and understand any type of information.

Other Symptoms

Some of the other symptoms that could impact a person in various ways are as follows;

• Communication: difficult speech patterns and thought processes make it difficult for a person to talk with others
• Social Life: the person starts secluding oneself from the social life with the thought of fear that others would harm him/her
• Expressing Emotions: the person won’t reply to the happy/sad events or reply inappropriately
• Motivation: the person starts avoiding routine life activities, and they won’t even care about themselves. They would be in the state of catatonia, where they don’t talk or move at all

Many schizophrenic people don’t accept the fact that they aren’t well. Hallucination and delusion seem very real to them, that’s why it’s difficult to persuade them to take the medicine that what they’re seeing isn’t real. They’re fearful of the side effects of the medicines that it would harm them.

Causes of Schizophrenia 

Some of the main causes of schizophrenia are as follows;

Genetic Inheritance

If a person doesn’t have a family history of schizophrenia, the probability of getting is lower than 1%. The riskiness becomes higher when any of your parents have a schizophrenic diagnosis.

Chemical Imbalance in Brain

Schizophrenic symptoms tend to develop in person when there’s an imbalance of serotonin and dopamine in the brain.

Environmental Factors

Some of the environmental factors that would amplify the riskiness of schizophrenic symptoms are as follows;

• Trauma and other psychological issues
• Viral infections
• Malnutrition before your birth
• Or trauma before your birth

Side Effects of Drugs

Research studies have discovered that drugs and substances like cannabis could ignite schizophrenic symptoms if you’re vulnerable to it.

Diagnosis 

A doctor usually diagnoses the condition based on the symptoms and behavior of the person. He would also ask you about mental and physical health issues. in fact, the doctor would also recommend you to get various tests in order to rule out bipolar disorder, mental health conditions, brain injury, and tumors.

Diagnostic Criteria

According to the diagnostic criteria, a person must be exhibiting any of the symptoms for roundabout a month like;

• Delusion
• Hallucination
• Disorganized speech
• Catatonic behavior or grossly disorganized
• Emotional flatness, lack of speech, lower motivation level, and negative symptoms

The abovementioned symptoms badly impact the capability of a person to perform various routine tasks, interact with others, and do school work. Its symptoms are persistent for six months or more. You have to make sure that it’s not happening due to something else like a substance’s side effects, medication, or health conditions.

Treatment of Schizophrenia

It’s important to mention here that schizophrenic symptoms last lifelong, and its effective treatment would be avoiding hospitalization, preventing relapses, and managing symptoms. The experience of every person is different, and the doctor would prescribe you the relevant to one’s needs and requirements. However, some of the main treatments are as follows;

• Special Care: it combines various elements like educational services, indulging family, and medication.
• Counseling: it allows a person to develop managing skills in order to pursue lifelong goals
• Antipsychotic Drugs: a person can take the medicines daily or in the form of injections, and the duration usually lasts for 3 months depending on the medicines.

Some of the main schizophrenic medicines are as follows;

• Haloperidol
• Clozapine
• Ziprasidone
• Quetiapine
• Olanzapine
• Risperidone

Some of the medicines exhibit adverse side effects like weight gain and neurological symptoms. The side effects of the new medication are less severe. The symptoms would return if the person stops the medications. If the medication is making improvements, then you should continue the treatment.

Conclusion: What Is Schizophrenia? Symptoms, Causes, Treatment 

After an in-depth study of what is schizophrenia; its symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and treatment, we’ve realized that schizophrenic condition is a severe mental health issue. If any of your acquaintances are exhibiting such symptoms, then you should consult with the therapist for treatment.