Schizophrenia is one of the most complex mental illnesses known to date. It has the ability to affect the mind in a large number of ways and can have a huge impact on the quality of life of the individual diagnosed. Those with the disorder often times have a hard time telling the difference between what is real and what isn’t, have an inability to think clearly, and may act awkwardly in social situations. While new treatment options are appearing all the time, there is no set way to treat Schizophrenia. Many doctors use a combination of things to help those involved. As time passes, treatment options become more complex and involved. One day, there may be a cure for this awful disease.
Schizophrenia is often associated with sheer lunacy or craziness. It’s an incapacitating disease that affects the person’s life on a daily basis. An effected person can have a huge variety of symptoms, and each case may be dramatically different. One of the most common symptoms of the disease is the hearing of voices. While these are not audible voices, they appear to be inside the person’s head. They can cause the effected person to mumble incoherently to themselves, or provoke them to do certain acts. Some may be motivated to do harmful things to themselves or others around them.
Hallucinations
They also tend to have hallucinations, meaning they see things that aren’t really there. This is one of the more common perceptual symptoms of the disorder. While the exact cause of these are unknown, many researchers and physicians point to some type of chemical imbalance in the brain and dysfunctional inner thinking. These hallucinations can greatly attribute to their incoherent speech and nonsense. One of the biggest underlying factors psychologist’s look at is from a biological prospective. Many look closely at genetics, stating that the disease can be closely linked to hereditary makeup. The illness could possibly be linked to some deformities in a certain chromosome.
Schizophrenia has also been linked to biochemical factors in the brain. Particularly an imbalance of dopamine produced. Patients with schizophrenia tend to have very elevated levels of dopamine in their system, and it has been directly correlated with the disease. To provide further proof to this theory, antipsychotic drugs that reduce dopamine levels have shown to be very effective in treating the disease. In combination with other treatment options, these drugs are generally given to patients to reduce this excess creation. They work by blocking the dopamine receptors and shutting down production.
Envrionmental Factors
Finally, schizophrenia has long been linked with environmental factors. While advances in science have pushed us further from this perspective, it is still believed it plays some role. A large number of aspects in a person’s environment may trigger a response, but pointing to one key thing can be difficult. Factors such as immigration, drug abuse, geographical variation, and prenatal stress have all been linked as contributors to schizophrenia. All of these factors appear to put some sort of stress on the individual, and this could be the common tread amongst them. Before some of the more reason biological findings, Schizophrenia was always linked to parent/child relationships. The child was often mistreated by the parent, and nothing the child did would please them. Overall poor parenting has been linked to schizophrenia, but that can be difficult to prove. It just goes to show you how complex this illness is, and that scientists and doctors don’t truly understand it yet.
