Schizophrenia
What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness which causes to withdraw from the people and activities in the world around and to retreat into a world of delusions or separate reality.
Schizophrenia may result in some combination of hallucinations, delusions, and extremely disordered thinking and behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.
Schizophrenia is a neuropsychiatric disorder that begins during late adolescence and early adulthood. It is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech and behavioural changes that cause social and occupational dysfunctions.
Signs of Schizophrenia
- The symptoms of schizophrenia are usually observed between ages 16 and 30, such as e.g. delusions, hallucinations, thought disorders, movement disorders etc.
- Delusions are false beliefs of the patient that may take many forms like delusions of persecution or grandeur. You may feel somebody is controlling you or may think you have extraordinary powers and abilities.
- Hallucinations are when the patient hears voices more than seeing, feeling, tasting or smelling random things, which are not actually there. The patient may speak to himself, may appear as if conversing with someone.
- Thought disorders are when the person jumps from one subject to another for no logical reason.
- Some negative symptoms i.e. these are symptoms which are normally present in a healthy individual, but are absent in a schizophrenic patient. E.g. absence of facial expressions, lack of motivation, lack of drive, etc.
- Cognitive symptoms affect the individual’s thought process. They can be positive or negative based on their expression. E.g. poor ‘executive functioning’ which deals with the ability to understand information and make decisions using them, finding it difficult to focus etc.
