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Schizophrenia

By Rosie Rushing, Simon Beymer and Sam Elice

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What is Schizophrenia?

“Schizophrenia interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others”(2).

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Signs and Symptoms

  • Hallucinations- are hearing, seeing, feeling, or smelling things that other people can’t hear, see, feel, or smell. Most common is hearing voices (2).
  • Delusions- false beliefs that are not from that person’s culture and do not change. They still believe them even when proven wrong (2).
  • Thought Disorder- disorganization in thoughts.
  • Movement Disorder- agitated body movements, more severely it’s called Catatonia which is failure to respond to others.

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Signs and Symptoms (cont.)

  • Flat affect- person doesn’t move face when they talk.
  • Depression- lack of pleasure in daily life.
  • Lack of ability to start or finish planned events.
  • Speaking very little.
  • Trouble focusing.
  • Poor decision-making.
  • Memory problems.

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Statistics

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Treatments

Schizophrenia is rarely cured, but instead it is treated with various medications such as, Haldol, Abilify, Prolixin, Thorazine, Etrafon, Trilafon, which help control the psychosis. However, these medications will not help with developing social relationships or help with getting a job. Poverty and homelessness are often associated with this disease, but if a person gets proper treatment they can have a happy life.

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A day in the life...

A day in the life of a person with schizophrenia is confusing and chaotic, the voices in their heads must be excruciating to live with. They live in a constant whirlwind of delusions and hallucinations, never quite understanding what is their own feelings and thoughts from the voices invading their

heads. As a person with this illness one might have trouble separating reality from fiction, even take the medical treatment for a conspiracy and try to lash out at those around them. (5).

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5 Facts

  1. 2.4 million American adults are affected by Schizophrenia, (1).

2. Schizophrenia is often confused with multi-personality disorder (4).

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3.It is considered to be one of the most severe mental illnesses, because the symptoms are devastating to the individual.

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4. Some schizophrenics use neologisms which are words that they invented to make a special meaning.

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5. There are four subtypes of schizophrenia, catatonic, disorganized, paranoid, and undifferentiated.

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Works Cited

  1. Web Sites: “NAMI - The National Alliance on Mental Illness.” NAMI. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.
  2. "Schizophrenia." NIMH RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.
  3. "Schizophrenia-Medicines." WebMD. WebMD, 03 May 0000. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.
  4. Book: Piotrowski, Nancy A. Salem Health: Psychology and Mental Health. PSY ed. Vol. 4. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2010. Print. R 150.3.
  5. Corvin, Aiden. "The Changing Faces of Schizophrenia." MAS Ultra - School Edition. EBSCOhost, n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2013.