what to do when you think someone needs mental help
Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that affects a person's ability to function socially in a typical way. People with this condition may hear voices or experience paranoid or delusional thoughts, such as believing that their minds are being read or controlled. Experiences like these tin can cause social withdrawal, fearfulness or agitation to a severe level.
People with schizophrenia may accept difficulty conveying data when they talk, may sit down for hours without talking or moving, or may seem completely fine until they talk nearly what they're thinking. To learn more about how this condition affects people, review this basic information almost what schizophrenia is, how it's diagnosed and how mental health professionals treat it.
What Is Schizophrenia?
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM-5) — a handbook that contains diagnostic criteria to help professionals recognize mental wellness disorders — defines the term "schizophrenia" as a spectrum of disorders that include a combination of delusions, hallucinations and other disorganized behaviors. To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, the DSM-v requires that a person experiences at least 2 of the following behaviors (including at least i of the offset three) consistently over a month-long period:
- Delusions
- Hallucinations
- Disorganized speech
- Disorganized or catatonic behavior
- Negative symptoms such as a lack of speech or diminished emotional expression
Schizophrenia is a chronic disorder that a professional can merely diagnose afterwards 6 months of observation. People who experience an episode of acute psychosis aren't automatically diagnosed with schizophrenia, and someone can exhibit i or more symptoms of schizophrenia without really having the disorder. Another diagnostic requirement is that someone must too exhibit the symptoms of schizophrenia when complimentary from the influence of exterior factors, including alcohol and drugs.
Iii primary types of symptoms are associated with schizophrenia:
- Positive symptoms: This refers to perceptions or thoughts such as delusions, mirages, voices, scents, disorganized behavior and move disorders.
- Negative symptoms: These include a loss of or subtract in the power to speak, express emotion, initiate plans (lack of "goal-directed beliefs") or find pleasure in everyday life. Patients with schizophrenia may lose their power to perform basic hygiene activities also. These symptoms may appear months or fifty-fifty years earlier the positive symptoms of schizophrenia do.
- Cognitive symptoms: These include problem paying attention, retentivity issues and a decreased ability to manage executive functions (such as organizing and planning). These are much harder symptoms to recognize and tin often exist mistaken for laziness. They tin can also be difficult to recognize every bit function of the disorder only tin be some of the most disabling symptoms.
Schizophrenia Causes and Risk Factors
Although the cause of this condition isn't completely articulate, schizophrenia probable results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Schizophrenia has been known to run in twins and close relatives, but non all cases run in families. Studies propose that this disorder may be the result of differences in a person'due south brain's chemical residual, which includes the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and glutamate.
Schizophrenia may develop during childhood or adulthood, and it affects people of all genders equally. Although childhood-onset schizophrenia can start as early on as historic period five, this is quite rare. The symptoms of autism and other childhood developmental disabilities are like to those of schizophrenia; therefore childhood-onset schizophrenia is difficult to diagnose.
What are improve understood are the run a risk factors for a poor response to schizophrenia treatment. These include drug or substance corruption and alcoholism. Smoking and nicotine use, along with caffeine use, may as well reduce the efficacy of the antipsychotic drugs that are the courage of schizophrenia treatment.
Schizophrenia Tests, Diagnosis and Treatment
There are no specific medical tests for diagnosing schizophrenia. Instead, professionals diagnose it following a focused psychiatric evaluation and documentation of symptoms and their duration, as defined by the DSM-5. A psychiatrist volition examine the patient and discuss any signs or abnormalities the patient's family unit members may take noticed. Although there are no medical tests for diagnosing schizophrenia, encephalon imaging and blood tests may be used to rule out other disorders or medical conditions that could cause like symptoms.
Current treatments for schizophrenia focus on eliminating the symptoms of the disease rather than preventing or curing the disorder. Antipsychotic drugs such as clozapine are the mainstay of schizophrenia treatment. A patient may need to take multiple antipsychotic drugs for long-term symptom management. Non-pharmacologic treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, are besides useful for assisting with social aligning. Self-help groups and family unit counseling may exist benign, likewise.
The antipsychotic drugs that are mutual in the treatment of schizophrenia have several metabolic side effects. These include:
- Sleepiness
- Weight gain
- Increased take a chance of diabetes or high cholesterol
- Body tremors
- Sluggish movement
- Restlessness
- Cardiac rhythm changes that can predispose a patient to arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat)
- Significant reduction in white blood cells, which increases the patient'southward risk of infection
- Tardive dyskinesia, which describes involuntary movements and twitches
Schizophrenia Health Outcomes
Despite notable advancements in pharmacologic and not-pharmacologic therapies, the overall outcomes for patients with schizophrenia are inconsistent. Schizophrenia drug therapy needs to remain ongoing. That'southward because relapse is common if the patient stops taking their medication, which is often called "not-compliance." This is common in patients with schizophrenia, with not-compliance rates of up to 74%.
Non-compliance frequently happens because of drug side effects, symptoms not improving or the patient's denial of their disease. Insight into the symptoms, course, treatment and outcomes of schizophrenia is critical for achieving lasting treatment and is a central gene in preventing relapse and treatment non-compliance.
People with schizophrenia are expected to alive 10 to 15 years less than the general population. This is likely due to the consequences of untreated symptoms, which include poor hygiene, substance corruption and an increased likelihood of ignoring other wellness weather condition that require treatment.
If information technology's not properly diagnosed and treated, schizophrenia tin lead to numerous complications, including:
- Substance corruption: A person with untreated or poorly managed schizophrenia may plow to substance abuse for symptom direction or coping. Yet, substance corruption is known to exacerbate the symptoms of schizophrenia. It can also decrease the effectiveness of treatment for someone living with schizophrenia.
- Physical illness: Refusing proper treatment and intendance for schizophrenia may cause someone who has the condition to pass up medical care. This can atomic number 82 to potential health problems and physical illness.
- Suicide: If non diagnosed and treated, schizophrenia tin atomic number 82 to suicide. Substance abuse further increases this risk.
Resource Links:
https://world wide web.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519704/table/ch3.t22/
https://world wide web.mayoclinic.org/diseases-weather/schizophrenia/symptoms-causes/syc-20354443
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMHT0024791/
Patel KR, Cherian J, Gohil K, Atkinson D. "Schizophrenia: Overview and Handling Options" P.T. 2014;39(nine):638-45
Source: https://www.symptomfind.com/health-conditions/schizophrenia-condition?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740013%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex
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