George Scott
Freshman Seminar
Period 5
Health Update #2
Topic: Schizophrenia
Summary:
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects its victims’ thoughts, jesters, emotions and the way he or she perceives reality. There are five different types of Schizophrenia, Paranoid Schizophrenia that causes its sufferer to be preoccupied with false or misleading delusions about being punished by someone. Although most people with Disorganized Schizophrenia have normal emotions and can speak fluently. Disorganized Schizophrenia is more serious, often people with this type have speech problems, they also have trouble performing everyday normal tasks such as cooking food and sometimes are very childlike. Another case is Catatonic Schizophrenia. It is very serious because its symptoms are physical; people with it are usually immobile or completely unresponsive to their surroundings. A striking fact about this type is that some sufferers pose in bizarre postures. Residual Schizophrenia is a type of Schizophrenia where the severity of the symptoms decrease, Hallucinations, delusions or other symptoms might still affect the victim. Finally we have Undifferentiated Schizophrenia, which is a subtype that is diagnosed when the victim’s symptoms do not clearly resemble those of the three other subtypes. Popular belief says Schizophrenia is a split personality, this is wrong. Schizophrenia is not a split personality, it is a mental illness, a psychosis in which a person cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination. Instead of seeing things normally, Schizophrenic’s may view the world as a jumble of confusing thoughts, sounds and images. Their behavior may be very strange, with similar symptoms to bipolar disorder where their moods change instantly; this is what’s known as a psychotic episode. The severity of the mental illness varies for different people, some have only one symphonic episode while others have many. (WebMD)
At first, most symptoms are not noticeable. Some victims may feel tense, or have sleeping problems, or trouble concentrating and keeping friends. But as the illness continues, some symptoms that can be categorized “psychotic” start occurring. For example, a sufferer may experience a mood where he or she shows no emotion. Or, a victim could have bizarre jesters and movements, which falls under the catatonic type of Schizophrenia. Some might even have delusions that have nothing to do with reality. In some worse cases, Schizophrenics may hallucinate, hearing feeling or seeing things that aren’t there. Treatment is harsh, usually it includes staying in the hospital for safety reasons including help with sleeping, hygiene and food. Medication-wise, antipsychotic also known as narcoleptic medications help by changing the balance of chemicals in the brain to help control the symptoms of Schizophrenia. These medications are proven to be very helpful with controlling Schizophrenia, although they have many side effects such as a gearstick weight change (gain), or sleepiness, problems with movements and muscle contractions. Schizophrenia is very complex and hard to study. The cause is unknown, although there are many theories such as ones of doctors who believe that the brain may not be able to process information correctly. Some researchers conclude that in some cases a victims environment may trigger the illness. (Google Health)
Relevance:
I chose to do my Health Update on Schizophrenia because I was very interested in it when I heard about it briefly in Freshman Seminar. I thought it was very serious and reading the articles almost scared me, I was frightened with some of the symptoms and it proved itself to be a very serious mental illness. I’ve learned many things by doing this update including the fact that there are 5 known types of Schizophrenia. I think it was worth it, because now I know all about Schizophrenia.
Work Cited:
“Schizophrenia: Overview & Facts”. WebMD. HealthWise. nd. Web. 25 October 10
“Schizophrenia”. Google Health. A.D.A.M. Web. 25 October 10