Describe Schizophrenia Symptoms and Treatment Therapies (Essay Sample)

Describe Schizophrenia symptoms and treatment therapies.
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Schizophrenia is a very serious mental disorder and it ruins a person’s thinking feelings and actions. It’s a mental illness which is accompanied by disturbances in personality, emotions, behavior and patients ability to form relationships, occurring in a setting of clear consciousness memory and orientation. ( Sharif, S.K, 1994, pg 122).
Schizophrenia is not characterized by split personality as perceived by many people. It is not caused by experiences in childhood or even poor parenting. Causes of this illness are not well understood but it is argued that it may be caused by heredity factors, Imbalance of brain chemistry, viral infections or even immune disorders. A person suffering from schizophrenia may often be overwhelmed by sensory information such as music or bright light which normal individuals can handle very easily. The symptoms of schizophrenia may occur in a slow manner over months or years or appear abruptly. The signs of the illness may be different to different individuals and a schizophrenic patient may not necessarily suffer all the symptoms of schizophrenia. The symptoms of schizophrenia are divided into two that is, positive symptoms and negative symptoms.
Positive symptoms are those disturbances that "add" to the patient’s personality. They include: delusions, hallucinations and disordered thinking and speech.
Delusion refers to a strong belief that that a person holds on false ideas (Gail, B. Ladwig, 2004, pg 124). The person tends to have unshakable beliefs which do not rhyme with the way other people view the world. This condition occurs in different distinct types; paranoid delusion where the victim tend to think that someone is chasing, plotting against or even poisoning him or her. The victim may also have weird thinking that a person close to him or her or a family member is making all this happen to him or her. Delusion of grandeur is a second type of delusion where the schizophrenic person thinks that he or she is a very famous or important person.
The affected person may also suffer from hallucination whereby he or she sees, feels, taste, hears or smell something that is not in existence. The most common one is hearing of voices that do not really exist the voice could be familiar or unfamiliar and it could also be in a tone of whispering, shouting or in conversing. It can also be female, male, or unfamiliar language or even have different accent to the one the victim knows ( Gail, B.L, 2004, pg 125).
Disordered thinking and speech may involve wavering from one topic to another in a nonsensical manner. The victims may come up with their own sounds or even words.
The negative symptoms are the disturbances that involve loss of ability to enjoy in life. Some of these symptoms include: Lack of motivation, poor hygiene and grooming, incapability to plan and set goals, reduced interest in sex, sleeping difficulties, slow movements, lack of initiative or drive, social withdrawal, extreme apathy, and emotional unresponsiveness.
Negative symptoms tend to be more persistent and they can be retained even after the positive symptoms have disappeared. Hence, negative symptoms are regarded more serious than the positive symptoms.
According to International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) produced by World Health Organization (WHO), it specifies that one must have had symptoms of schizophrenia for most of the time for at least one month before diagnosis of schizophrenia illness can be made. Most of the victims of the illness have difficulty with thoughts, motivation daily living activities, relationships and communications. Since the illness starts on the years critical to education and also professional training, victims of schizophrenia lack social skills and experience....