Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder that affects more than 2 million adult Americans. People with this disorder sometimes hear voices others don't hear, believe that others are broadcasting their thoughts to the world, or become convinced that others are plotting to harm them. People with schizophrenia may not make sense when they talk, may sit for hours without moving or talking much, or may seem perfectly fine until they talk about what they are really thinking. Because many people with schizophrenia have difficulty holding a job or caring for themselves, the burden on their families and society is significant.Available treatments can relieve many of the disorder's symptoms, but most people who have schizophrenia must cope with some residual symptoms as long as they live. Nevertheless, this is a time of hope for people with schizophrenia and their families. Many people with the disorder now lead rewarding and meaningful lives in their communities. Researchers are developing more effective medications and using new research tools to understand the causes of schizophrenia and to find ways to prevent and treat it. In men, schizophrenia usually appears in the late teens or early twenties. The disorder usually shows up when women are in their twenties to early thirties.Schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency.Schizophrenia occurs in 1 percent of the general population, but is seen in 10 percent of people with a first-degree relative (a parent, brother, or sister) with the disorder. The identical twin of a person with the disorder is most at risk, with a 40 to 65 percent chance of developing the disease.Like many other illnesses, schizophrenia is believed to result from a combination of environmental and genetic factors.People with schizophrenia are addicted to nicotine at three times the rate of the general population (75-90 percent vs. 25-30 percent). The reasons for this are unclear.Schizophrenia costs the nation $32.5 billion annually according to the most recently available data.TreatmentBecause the causes of schizophrenia are still unknown, current treatments focus on eliminating the symptoms of the disease. Antipsychotic medications have been available since the mid-1950s. They effectively alleviate the positive symptoms of schizophrenia but sometimes cause side effects such as tremors and restlessness. Newer medications developed in the 1990s, called atypical antipsychotics, have been found to cause fewer side effects. No one can tell beforehand exactly how medication will affect a particular individual, and sometimes several medications must be tried before the right one is found. Numerous studies have found that psychosocial treatments can help patients who are already stabilized on antipsychotic medications deal with certain aspects of schizophrenia, such as difficulty with communications, motivation, self-care, work and relationships. Learning and using coping mechanisms to address these problems allows people with schizophrenia to attend school, work, and socialize.The outlook for people with schizophrenia has improved over the last 30 years or so. Although there is still no cure, effective treaments have been developed, and many people with schizophrenia improve enough to lead independent, satisfying lives.Read more: Schizophrenia — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/mental5.html#ixzz1nJdP3h00

schizophrenia (skit"sufrē'nēu) [key], group of severe mental disorders characterized by reality distortions resulting in unusual thought patterns and behaviors. Because there is often little or no logical relationship between the thoughts and feelings of a person with schizophrenia, the disorder has often been called “split personality.” However, the condition should not be confused with multiple personality, a disorder in which the individual has two or more distinct personalities that dominate at different times.In 1896, the German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin grouped what were previously considered unrelated mental diseases under the term dementia praecox. It was not until 1908, however, that an influential essay by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler corrected Kraepelin's theory that the disease was an organic brain deterioration and thus incurable. Bleuler introduced the term schizophrenia to replace dementia praecox, emphasizing the dissociative phenomena in the mind and avoiding the implications of early onset and progressive brain deterioration.Schizophrenic disorders generally begin in the late teenage years or early adulthood and tend to occur in withdrawn, seclusive individuals. The lifetime prevalence worldwide has been estimated to be just under 1%, and the disorder affects 1.5 to 2 million people in the United States alone. Symptoms include disturbances of thought, both in form and content (see delusion), and disturbances of perception, most commonly appearing as visual or aural hallucinations.There are five major types of schizophrenia listed by the American Psychiatric Association in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The most severe are disorganized (hebephrenic) schizophrenia, characterized by hallucinations, delusions, inappropriate laughing and crying, incoherent speech, and infantile behavior; and catatonic schizophrenia, characterized by physical rigidity or hyperactivity. Paranoid schizophrenics can often function relatively normally, although they may be disturbed by persecutory delusions and hallucinations, and they tend to exhibit argumentative behavior. The presence of a combination of symptoms from other types is classified as undifferentiated schizophrenia. Residual schizophrenia is constituted by minor symptoms, which occur as an active episode diminishes.The cause of schizophrenia is unknown. Genetic factors appear to be involved in producing susceptibility to the condition, with studies among identical twins showing a 30%–50% concordance rate, a figure that has been confirmed by the results of adoption studies. Biochemical research suggests that high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, or excessive numbers of receptors for dopamine, may be at the root of schizophrenia. Medical imaging studies have revealed various physical and physiological anomalies in some patients. Other research has focused on mistiming of neural responses to stimuli in the brain. Many researchers maintain that a combination of influences, including such environmental factors as viral illness or malnutrition in the patient's mother during pregnancy, may lead to schizophrenia,Antipsychotic drugs (see psychopharmacology), sometimes in conjunction with psychotherapy, have greatly improved the treatment of schizophrenia. Hospitalization is sometimes needed initially to provide basic personal needs (safety, food, and hygiene) while acute symptoms are treated. Most patients return to the community with varying degrees of independence and with good prospects for long-term remission of symptoms.See R. Miller and S. Mason, Diagnosis: Schizophrenia (2002); studies by I. I. Gottesman (1991) and H. Häfner and W. F. Gattaz, ed. (1991).Read more: schizophrenia — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0843952.html#ixzz1nJdhxraW