Schizophrenia Treatment Paper

Schizophrenia is affecting people more now than a few decades ago. This illness is across the US and is present in every culture. People are now aware and understand how the illness can be devastating to one’s life. Schizophrenia is a mental disorder of the brain but it is highly treatable. In the US the total amount of people affected with the illness is about 2.2 % of the adult population. The average number of people affected per 1000 total population is 7.2 % per 1000, which means a city that is consists of 3 million people will have approxiamately 21,000 people suffering from schizophrenia. People with mental illness should seek early treatment to be stabilized with medications. During a 10 year period 25% of schizophrenics

I chose to write my research paper over Schizophrenia. It is a psychological disorder that I have always found fascinating. It is a serious disorder that consumes a person's life and is nearly impossible to control. In this paper, I will talk about the definition of Schizophrenia, the diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia in children, suicide, sexually related characteristics of the disease, sleep disorders caused by the disease, differences in the disease on different ethnicities, and insensitivity to pain.

Although more SZ patient improved with real ECT, which compared to placebo, when comparing to antipsychotics medication, the drugs are more beneficial. There was some limited evidence to suggest that ECT combined with medication resulted in greater improvement in mental state. The conclusion was that a combination of drugs and ECT could be useful if a rapid reduction of symptoms is required or when patients don’t respond well to drugs alone. (Tharyan and adams 2005)

The symptoms of schizophrenia vary, however, they have been categorized as positive, negative, and cognitive symptoms. Positive symptoms may include hallucinations, delusions, and / or thought disorder. Hallucinations normally give a false perception of touch, smell, taste, and / or visit, those with this particular mental disorder often experience auditory hallucinations. Delusions are also a sign of schizophrenia. Open quotations delusions are beliefs that are not part of the person's culture and do not change. Quotation parentheses u.s. Department, print the seas, 2010. These may cause a person that has this disorder, to think or feel as if they are victims in imagine conspiracy. It is also shown that they believe they are being controlled

Amy Standen wrote an article on multiple people dealing with schizophrenia, as well as doctors’ opinions on treatments. In her article, “Halting Schizophrenia Before It Starts,” Standen underlined Dr. McFarlane’s low tech interventions help reduce symptoms. He believes stress can increase the problems of schizophrenia, so he created a multifamily group therapy to resolve problems at home, and find solutions to make a stress free environment. Many times doctors prescribe antipsychotic drugs, but do not recommend them for younger individuals because of negative side effects. Instead, doctors would rather see them being outside and getting support from friend and family. It can be hard to diagnose schizophrenia as the developing symptoms can resemble depression (Standen np). This makes it harder for doctors to make a diagnosis and decide what treatments they should prescribe. There are many other treatments to help the brain with schizophrenia. Amy Standen wrote another article where she describes a new therapy they use at the Citywide Mental Health Center in San Francisco. In her article, “Brain Training May Help Calm The Storms Of Schizophrenia,” Standen states how doctor Vinogradov is doing an experiment to see if the brain can be retaught. He uses computer games to train his patients to tune out distractions and focus on one thing at a time. The hallucinations and voices being heard can be

Dr. Sakel was the developer of insulin shock therapy from 1927 while a young doctor in Vienna, starting to practice it in 1933. It would become widely used on individuals with schizophrenia and other mental patients. He noted that insulin-induced coma and convulsions, due to the low level of glucose attained in the blood

It was believed a seizure in the brain caused by the electric current would stimulate the release of neurotransmitters, and would allow the brain to reorganize to function correctly (Nasar). Neurotransmitters are chemical substances that transmit signals that facilitate cell to cell communication throughout the nervous system, and play a key component in the biological paradigm for treatment of schizophrenia. At this early stage of understanding schizophrenia’s pathology, it was believed these chemicals were imbalanced and shocking the brain would force a rebalance of these vital chemicals. Once rebalanced, it was hypothesized the patient would no longer suffer from schizophrenia (Tharyan, 2005). The insight into treating neurotransmitter imbalances in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia began the treatment path to present day antipsychotic pharmaceutical drug therapy. While the actual effects of electroshock therapy on patients with schizophrenia are unclear, it is still used today to treat schizophrenic patients who are resistant to pharmaceutical drug therapy. Electroshock therapy was the utilization of insulin coma therapy and electroshock therapy to treat schizophrenia were successful partly due to the required hospital admittance and doctor administered methodology. In both treatments the patients were required to be admitted into a hospital and were not responsible for administering the treatment themselves. While both treatment methods were viewed as inhumane and

A patient that shows sign such as regression, inappropriate affect, and other behaviors that are childish or bizarre most likely has disorganized schizophrenia. But this is not the only type of schizophrenia, there are others such as: Paranoid schizophrenia, disorganized schizophrenia, catatonic schizophrenia, undifferentiated schizophrenia, and lastly residual schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia affects approximately 2.5 million Americans and more than 24 million people worldwide (Janssen). Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that is very difficult to live with. Schizophrenia has strong hereditary component (Smith, Segal). People with schizophrenia hear voices, lose touch with reality, can’t think clearly, function, see things or hear things that are not really there, and can’t distinguish what is real and what is unreal(Smith, Segal). Having this disorder could affect the relationship they have with others and even loved ones. To students who are non-aware of this disorder should know that this could happen to anyone.

People need help in various ways because when they are suffering with schizophrenia, they have difficulty with thinking, motivation, physical activities, activities of the daily living, relations, and communication skills. There are many useful therapies, for instance, individual psychotherapy helps the person to understand more about their illness and to better help with their daily lives. Rehabilitation helps them with problem solving support, social skills, and education in money management. They might be benefitted with improvement in cognitive and thinking skills. With the help of cognitive behavioral therapy the patient is helped to test and understand the reality of their thoughts and perceptions. With this therapy they get help on managing on not listening to the voices that tells them what to do, and most importantly to manage their symptoms overall. Personally, the most important therapy is family education, because it is important that all the family members are aware of the person suffering from schizophrenia. Their family should learn everything about this illness, they should also make sure that their loved ones follow their medication and treatments

Many individuals in United States have been diagnosed with a mental disorder of some type. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) about 1% of the American people have been diagnosed with the devastating mental disorder called schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that deeply affects the everyday life of not only the patient but their family and friends as well. Although there are many people who suffer from this demoralizing mental illness, experts say one thing they are sure on is that there’s a lot they don’t know about the disorder.

Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disorder that affects more than one percent of the population. When schizophrenia is active, symptoms can include delusions, hallucinations, trouble with thinking and concentration, and lack of motivation. However, when these symptoms are treated properly, a large portion of those diagnosed will greatly improve over time.

Both these treatments included burdens to the mind. ECT included putting a current through the mind and prompt an epileptic fit. This was now and then known not damage to the patient through the extreme writhing’s. ECT ended up being extremely compelling for patients enduring with sadness and still utilized as a part of extraordinarily uncommon cases today. In a report on Tone Vale Hospital by the NHS Hospital Advisory Service in 1947 it discuss how many of the staff carrying out these procedures had little training . The lobotomy included cutting the cerebrum tissue inside the frontal flaps of the mind. This had blended results and was stopped in the 50 's .

Clearly, this is a very serious disorder, which is often utterly incapacitating. Therefore, individuals urgently require efficacious treatment, both for survival and for quality of life, and many different kinds of treatment and therapy are used. This paper will examine the use of two of these, cognitive behavioral therapy and drug therapy, and evaluate which one is better. It will take the position that drug therapy is a more effective therapy for treating schizophrenia than is cognitive behavioral therapy.

Other interventions and treatments that may be introduced once the individual is stable enough on medication to be receptive and benefit from these treatments include: individual therapy, group counseling, family counseling, vocational rehabilitation/training, social skills training, and daily living skills training. It is also important to provide the family with support, education, and the proper intervention skills, to assist them with coping with the difficulties that come with having a family member diagnosed with schizophrenia (Preston, O'Neal & Talaga, 2010).