Schizophrenia

Is anyone around like this?

Someone who shouts without reason, remains irritable most of the time, you can’t get idea when he/she becomes aggressive,beats another without any reason, sleeps very less, talks while alone, talks very odd words in between, sometimes noticed to make gestures like he/she talking to someone when no one is there, wanders aimlessly, remains alone and aloof, highly suspicious, don’t take bath regularly, engrossed in own world, has no facial expression most of time even in emotional moments, has false beliefs about people, lives in a fantasy world, remains fearful without any apparent reason..

This might be a case of schizophrenia. Here you can read about it.

Schizophrenia-

Schizophrenia is a major mental illness classified in psychosis. It is a disorder of perception (how we process the information), cognition (mental process of knowing and becoming aware; function is closely associated with judgment), thinking and behavior.

1 in 100 persons develops schizophrenia during their life times. Schizophrenia is equally prevalent in male (of 10 to 25 years) and female (of 25 to 35 years).

Why a person suffers from Schizophrenia –

  • family history of schizophrenia
  • chemical imbalance in brain
  • change in various structures and connections of brain
  • infections of mother during pregnancy

Symptoms-

Delusions (a firm belief which is false with the extraordinary conviction in spite of contradictory evidences) i.e. – convinced that someone is being persecuted and harmed.

Hallucinations (Hearing voices most commonly)

Disorganization of speech (oddities in speech like speech in which there is no connection between words and sentences)

Disorganization of behavior (grossly inappropriate behavior, i.e. eating feces, drinking urine, removing clothes in front of others etc. )

Decrease emotional expression

Know whether someone is schizophrenic or not?

Two or more of the above symptoms persists for at least 6 months.  Disturbance should hamper someone’s working, interpersonal relationship and self-care.

Schizophrenia can also be present with other medical illness like obesity, diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular disease, HIV etc.

Treatment-

Mainly medicines and therapies.

This site is just for the awareness of mental illnesses not for diagnosis. If someone finds himself/herself or their loved one having symptoms kindly consult a psychiatrist.