what is schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a severe long-term mental health condition. It causes a range of different psychological symptoms.
Doctors often describe schizophrenia as a type of psychosis. This means the person may not always be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.
Symptoms of schizophrenia include:
- hallucinations – hearing or seeing things that do not exist outside of the mind
- delusions – unusual beliefs not based on reality
- muddled thoughts based on hallucinations or delusions
- losing interest in everyday activities
- not caring about your personal hygiene
- wanting to avoid people, including friends
- Schizophrenia does not cause someone to be violent and people with schizophrenia do not have a split personality.
Symptoms of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia changes how a person thinks and behaves.
The condition may develop slowly. The first signs can be hard to identify as they often develop during the teenage years.
Symptoms such as becoming socially withdrawn and unresponsive or changes in sleeping patterns can be mistaken for an adolescent "phase".
People often have episodes of schizophrenia, during which their symptoms are particularly severe, followed by periods where they experience few or no symptoms. This is known as acute schizophrenia.
Hallucinations
Hallucinations are where someone sees, hears, smells, tastes or feels things that do not exist outside their mind. The most common hallucination is hearing voices.
Hallucinations are very real to the person experiencing them, even though people around them cannot hear the voices or experience the sensations.
Research using brain-scanning equipment shows changes in the speech area in the brains of people with schizophrenia when they hear voices. These studies show the experience of hearing voices as a real one, as if the brain mistakes thoughts for real voices.
Some people describe the voices they hear as friendly and pleasant, but more often they're rude, critical, abusive or annoying.
Symptoms of schizophrenia
Delusions
A delusion is a belief held with complete conviction, even though it's based on a mistaken, strange or unrealistic view. It may affect the way the person behaves. Delusions can begin suddenly or may develop over weeks or months.
Some people develop a delusional idea to explain a hallucination they're having. For example, if they have heard voices describing their actions, they may have a delusion that someone is monitoring their actions.
Confused thoughts (thought disorder)
People experiencing psychosis often have trouble keeping track of their thoughts and conversations.
Some people find it hard to concentrate and will drift from one idea to another. They may have trouble reading newspaper articles or watching a TV programme.
People sometimes describe their thoughts as "misty" or "hazy" when this is happening to them. Thoughts and speech may become jumbled or confused, making conversation difficult and hard for other people to understand.
Causes of schizophrenia
The exact causes of schizophrenia are unknown. Research suggests a combination of physical, genetic, psychological and environmental factors can make a person more likely to develop the condition.
Some people may be prone to schizophrenia, and a stressful or emotional life event might trigger a psychotic episode. However, it's not known why some people develop symptoms while others do not.
- Increased risk:
- genetics
- Brain development
- Neurotransmitters
- Pregnancy and birth complications
Treatments of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is usually treated with an individually tailored combination of talking therapy and medicine.
Most people with schizophrenia are treated by community mental health teams (CMHTs).
The goal of the CMHT is to provide day-to-day support and treatment while ensuring you have as much independence as possible.
A CMHT can be made up of and provide access to:
- social workers
- community mental health nurses – who have specialist training in mental health conditions
- occupational therapists
- pharmacists
- counsellors and psychotherapists
- psychologists and psychiatrists – the psychiatrist is usually the senior clinician in the team
After your first episode of schizophrenia, you should initially be referred to an early intervention team.
These specialist teams provide treatment and support, and are usually made up of psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers and support workers.
Treatments of schizophrenia
Antipsychotics
Antipsychotics are usually recommended as the initial treatment for the symptoms of an acute schizophrenic episode. They work by blocking the effect of the chemical dopamine on the brain.
Antipsychotics can usually reduce feelings of anxiety or aggression within a few hours of use, but may take several days or weeks to reduce other symptoms, such as hallucinations or delusional thoughts.
It's important that your doctor gives you a thorough physical examination before you start taking antipsychotics, and that you work together to find the right one for you.
Antipsychotics can be taken orally as a pill, or be given as an injection known as a depot. Several slow-release antipsychotics are available. These require you to have one injection every 2 to 4 weeks.
You may only need antipsychotics until your acute schizophrenic episode has passed.
However, most people take medication for 1 or 2 years after their first psychotic episode to prevent further acute schizophrenic episodes occurring, and for longer if the illness is recurrent.
There are 2 main types of antipsychotics:
typical antipsychotics – the first generation of antipsychotics developed in the 1950s
atypical antipsychotics – newer-generation antipsychotics developed in the 1990s
Source- Schizophrenia - NHS (www.nhs.uk)