What is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is an incurable mental illness. It is taken to be a psychotic disorder that makes the person unable to link thought, emotion and behavior. This leads to a withdrawal from his personal relationships and reality. In schizophrenia people undergo psychotic episodes. A psychotic episode is the term coined for unnecessary and unusual mood swings, becoming restless and eager without any good reason and being withdrawn. Schizophrenia, thus deeply affects/hampers the functioning of one’s thinking, conduct, social and personal life.

When is it Schizophrenia?

The diverse symptoms are a clue to the different kinds of schizophrenia. The indicators that are broadly divided into three categories thus vary with the types of schizophrenia.

Positive symptoms- schizophrenic suffer from hallucinations and delusions. These are the positive symptoms. Hallucinations make a person see things that are not actually there. For instance he may perceive a rope lying nearby as a snake and get petrified of it. In case of delusions, the individual might think himself to be someone, which he is not. He becomes oblivious of the reality and enters his own imaginary world. This can be too fatal at times for the schizophrenic and even for those near him.

The positive symptoms most often indicate the most common type of schizophrenia known as ‘paranoid schizophrenia’. The hallucinations and delusions make the individual act like a paranoid who is constantly scared of someone or something.

Negative symptoms- are exhibited when the person behaves like a mannequin i.e. he does not act or show any emotion. He becomes dull, impassive, unaffected and still personality and thereby displays a reaction less or catatonic conduct.

‘Catatonic schizophrenia’ is deemed to be the reason behind these indicators.

Disorganized indicators- show an individual’s distorted thoughts and memory; he is unable to connect various events, understand them and does or says a thing over and over again.

This uncommon and perplexed behavior is mostly the cause of ‘disorganized type’ of schizophrenia. However, if the symptoms are unlike any of these then the schizophrenia is believed to be of undifferentiated kind.

Who gets affected?

Unfortunately the accurate reasons behind schizophrenia are unknown till date. But experience has enabled doctors to posit some peculiar factors that invoke and provoke schizophrenia.

Genes- in many cases worldwide, schizophrenia is transferred genetically. Studies disclose that those individuals who have had a family history of this mental disorder are quite liable to be afflicted by it.

The imbalance of the brain chemical called ‘dopamine’ often disturbs the brain functioning and produces schizophrenia.

An unusual structure or working of brain is even a cause of schizophrenia.

Change in hormones at the onset of puberty, during pregnancy, excess of stress hormone in the body and any other viral infection can very well develop schizophrenia.

Addiction to narcotics may at times lead to schizophrenia.

Prevention and Medication

In order to prevent the frequent occurrence of psychotic episodes, doctors prescribe medicines after few tests. Once the tests confirm the mental disorder as none other than schizophrenia, treatment commences. The medicines so prescribed are quite efficient to a large extent however, if a schizophrenic becomes irregular in dosage, schizophrenia relapses without delay.

Nowadays some other treatments such as the electro conclusive therapy (ECT), personal therapy, animal assisted and stem cell therapy have turned out to be too beneficial in curing schizophrenia to a considerable extent. Apart from these, doctors emphasize a balanced diet that provides all essential nutrients to the body and is particularly rich in vitamin E.