Schizophrenia is a serious brain disorder that distorts the way a person thinks, acts, expresses emotions, perceives reality, and relates to others. People with schizophrenia -- the most chronic and disabling of the major mental illnesses -- often have problems functioning in society, at work, at school, and relationships. It is a life-long disease that cannot be cured but usually can be controlled with proper treatment.
Schizophrenia is a psychosis, a type of mental illness in which a person cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. At times, people with psychotic disorders lose touch with reality. The world may seem like a jumble of confusing thoughts, images, and sounds. The behavior of people with schizophrenia may be very strange and even shocking. A sudden change in personality and behavior, which occurs when schizophrenia sufferers lose touch with reality, is called a psychotic episode.
Schizophrenia varies in severity from person to person. Some people have only one psychotic episode while others have many episodes during a lifetime but lead relatively normal lives between episodes. Still other individuals with this disorder may experience a decline in their functioning over time with little improvement between full blown psychotic episodes. Schizophrenia symptoms seem to worsen and improve in cycles known as relapses and remissions.
In this case, the word positive does not mean "good." Rather, it refers to obvious symptoms that are not present in people without schizophrenia. These symptoms, which are sometimes referred to as psychotic symptoms, include:
- Delusions: Delusions are strange beliefs that are not based in reality and that the person refuses to give up, even when presented with factual information. For example, the person suffering from delusions may believe that people can hear his or her thoughts, that he or she is God or the devil, or that people are putting thoughts into his or her head or plotting against them.
- Hallucinations: These involve perceiving sensations that aren't real, such as seeing things that aren't there, hearing voices, smelling strange odors, having a "funny" taste in your mouth, and feeling sensations on your skin even though nothing is touching your body. Hearing voices is the most common hallucination in people with schizophrenia. The voices may comment on the person's behavior, insult the person, or give commands.
- Catatonia (a condition in which the person becomes fixed in a single position for a very long time).
Disorganized symptoms of schizophrenia are a type of positive symptom that reflects the person's inability to think clearly and respond appropriately. Examples of disorganized symptoms include:
- Talking in sentences that do not make sense or using nonsense words, making it difficult for the person to communicate or engage in conversation
- Shifting quickly from one thought to the next
- Moving slowly
- Being unable to make decisions
- Writing excessively but without meaning
- Forgetting or losing things
- Repeating movements or gestures, such as pacing or walking in circles
- Having problems making sense of everyday sights, sounds, and feelings.
Cognitive symptoms include:
- Poor executive functioning (the ability to understand information and to use it to make decisions)
- Trouble focusing or paying attention
- Difficulty with working memory (the ability to use information immediately after learning it)
Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia
In this case, the word negative does not mean "bad," but reflects the absence of certain normal behaviors in people with schizophrenia. Negative symptoms of schizophrenia include:
- Lack of emotion or a very limited range of emotions
- Withdrawal from family, friends, and social activities
- Reduced energy
- Reduced speech
- Lack of motivation
- Loss of pleasure or interest in life
- Poor hygiene and grooming habits
What Causes Schizophrenia?
The exact cause of schizophrenia is not yet known. It is known, however, that schizophrenia -- like cancer and diabetes -- is a real illness with a biological basis. It is not the result of bad parenting or personal weakness. Researchers have uncovered a number of factors that appear to play a role in the development of schizophrenia, including:
- Genetics (heredity): Schizophrenia tends to run in families, which means a greater likelihood to develop schizophrenia may be passed on from parents to their children.
- Brain chemistry: People with schizophrenia may have an imbalance of certain chemicals in the brain. They may be either very sensitive to or produce too much of a brain chemical called dopamine. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a substance that helps nerve cells in the brain send messages to each other. An imbalance of dopamine affects the way the brain reacts to certain stimuli, such as sounds, smells, and sights and can lead to hallucinations and delusions.
- Brain abnormality: Research has found abnormal brain structure and function in people with schizophrenia. However, this type of abnormality doesn't happen in all schizophrenics and can occur in people without the disease.
- Environmental factors: Evidence suggests that certain environmental factors, such as a viral infection, extensive exposure to toxins like marijuana, or highly stressful situations, may trigger schizophrenia in people who have inherited a tendency to develop the disorder. Schizophrenia more often surfaces when the body is undergoing hormonal and physical changes, such as those that occur during the teen and young adult years.
