Schizophrenia is severe, chronic brain disorder that has a disabling effect on its victims, and affects around 1% of people in America. The victims of this disease tend to hear strange voices that are unheard by other people. They also believe that other people can read their minds; control their thought patterns and have intentions of harming them. These issues greatly terrify the victims of this disease and may cause extreme agitation as well as withdrawal symptoms.
The people who suffer from schizophrenia may sit still for several hours and look perfectly normal until they begin expressing their thoughts to someone. With this kind of thought disorder, the schizophrenics are sometimes unable to take care of themselves, financially as well as emotionally, and thus rely on their families to help them.
This disorder has a variety of symptoms which are categorized into cognitive symptoms in addition to positive and negative symptoms. The positive symptoms include psychotic behaviors, which are not displayed by the normal people. Although these symptoms may be severe in some patients, in others, they are very subtle and hardly visible.
The first manifestation of the psychotic behaviors is hallucination; and in this case the victims of schizophrenia tend to hear, see, feel and smell things that the ordinary people around them do not perceive. Hearing voices in their heads is a common thing in these victims. They may also feel the touch of “invisible things” as well as see people whom others around them cannot see.
Delusions are also another kind of common symptom which stem from the hallucinations. In this case, the people who suffer from the disease tend to have strong beliefs in their hallucinations even after proof that these things are non-existent. They also believe in bizarre stuff like the control of their behavior by other people. This happens through magnetic waves and there is normally a strong sense that others intend to harm them. They may perceive themselves to be different people especially those associated with fame and glamour.
They also experience thought disorder which is displayed by the dysfunctional thought pattern. This may be seen when the victim talk in garbled ways and their words don’t make sense. They may stop talking mid-sentence and claim to have forgotten their thoughts. Other victims experience movement disorder; and this is evidenced by repetition of certain movements over again. In extreme conditions, the sufferer may turn out to be catatonic and stop moving or responding to the other people completely.
The negative symptoms like the cognitive ones are quite general and hard to recognize. They range from unhappiness in the individual to inability to start and sustain arranged activities, and interact well with others. Cognitive symptoms are normally seen through inability to comprehend information and make decisions using it. They also tend to lack focus and have poor concentration.
The treatment of the disease only reduces the symptoms and research for cure is still on-going. The society and especially families of schizophrenics are advised to try as much as possible to help them cope with the condition, and avoid anything that would exacerbate their situation.
