About Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder in which one's perception of reality is adversely affected. Schizophrenia affects about 1 percent of Americans. What causes the "voices and seeing things" associated with some types of schizophrenia is not precisely known. However, in most cases when a person hallucinates due to schizophrenia, he doesn't have visual hallucinations, only auditory ones. Auditory hallucinations are thought to be caused by malfunctions in the brain that cause some people with schizophrenia to think that internally generated speech (thoughts) are actually voices coming from outside of the body. Visual hallucinations are thought to be caused by a person mistaking vivid internal imagery for reality.
Symptoms of Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia has different classes of symptoms: positive symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive symptoms. Positive symptoms include delusions, hallucinations, movement disorders, thought disorders and unusual thoughts and/or perceptions. Negative symptoms involve the absence of or a decrease in the following areas: affect, pleasure in life, speaking, and the ability to initiate plans. Cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia include problems with attention and/or memory, and problems with the brain functions that allow planning and organizing. Most people associate schizophrenia with its positive symptoms, but this isn't always the situation.
Types of Scizophrenia
There are different types of schizophrenia, and each one exhibits a different combination of schizophrenia symptoms. The different types of schizophrenia include paranoid schizophrenia, disorganized (hebephrenic) schizophrenia, catatonic schizophrenia, residual schizophrenia and undifferentiated disorder. Positive schizophrenia is the most common form. It involves delusions and hallucinations (mainly auditory). Disorganized schizophrenia includes disorganized thought processes, disorganized behavior, and flat or inappropriate affect. Catatonic schizophrenia involves disorder of movement, involuntary movements, and in extreme cases catatonia--a state of immobility that can last for weeks. Residual schizophrenia involves the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and may include a lack of good hygiene. Undifferentiated schizophrenia is diagnosed when a person has schizophrenic symptoms that don't fall into any of the other categories.
Treatment of Schizophrenia
The primary treatment for schizophrenia is medication. Antipsychotic medications for schizophrenia have been available since the mid-1950s. People may respond differently to antipsychotic medications, so it may be necessary to try several different drugs and dosages to find the right treatment for a person with schizophrenia. However, the exact cause of schizophrenia is not known, so the drugs only treat the symptoms of schizophrenia and not the cause.
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