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Schizophrenia: Frequently Asked Questions

What is schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a thought disorder that may lead to a profound disturbance in reality-testing (e.g., delusions) or perceptual disturbances (such as hallucinations). There are several types of schizophrenia, such as paranoid, disorganized, and undifferentiated, and a wide variability in symptoms and clinical course.
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that involves problems with thought and emotions. It is often associated with other problems. Particularly for young adults, the most common age of onset, to lose a period of their life to this disease and treatment results is social and development problems when compared to peers.
Schizophrenia is a neurological brain disorder that affects 2.2 million Americans today, or approximately one percent of the population. Schizophrenia can affect anyone at any age, but most cases develop between ages 16 and 30. Schizophrenia interferes with a person's ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions, and relate to others. ...
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that affects around 1 in every 100 people. It affects men and women equally. It is rare before the age of 15, but can start at any time after this, most often between the ages of 15 and 35. There can be different symptoms but the most common is hallucinations (seeing, hearing, feeling or smelling things which are not really there).
Schizophrenia is a medical illness that causes strange thinking, strange feelings, and unusual behavior. It is an uncommon psychiatric illness in young teens and is hard to recognize in its early phases. Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling mental illness. It affects men and women with equal frequency.

Is schizophrenia inheritable?

There is a genetic component to schizophrenia, but we do not understand how it works. You may inherit the tendency if your environment is stressful. First degree biological relatives have a ten-times higher risk of developing schizophrenia than the general population. Top of page

Who gets schizophrenia?

Some facts about schizophrenia: The likelihood of developing it as some time in your life is about 1 in 100- about the same chance as for rheumatoid arthritis. The number of sufferers of schizophrenia at any one point in time (prevalence) is about 2 to 4 cases per 1000 people. That’s a quarter of a million people today in the UK with schizophrenia. Affected men show signs of schizophrenia earlier in their life than women. Men tend to show signs from their teens to early twenties. ...

What types of schizophrenia are there?

Catatonic : excitement consists of driven, excessive, but purposeless movement. At the other extreme catatonic patients appear stuporous with rigidly held postures usually remaining mute and unresponsive. Disorganized : disorganized speech and behaviors. Patients exhibiting this effect may be flat or inappropriate some times. (sometimes even silly. ) Paranoid : delusions and auditory hallucinations are predominant in patients with this type of schizophrenia while their cognitive functioning remains relatively intact. ...

What are the symptoms of schizophrenia?

For a person with schizophrenia, everyday tasks like thinking clearly, controlling emotions, making decisions, and relating to others are challenges. People with schizophrenia can have: "positive" symptoms of schizophrenia psychological disturbances "added" as a result of a disorder, such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and agitation "negative" symptoms of schizophrenia psychological capabilities the patient has "lost," such ...
There is a range of symptoms that can be displaced in people with schizophrenia. These symptoms include but are not limited to delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, emotional flatness and poor quality of speech and thought.

Can schizophrenia be cured?

Schizophrenia is a long-term illness, lasting for many years or even a lifetime. At this time, there is no cure for schizophrenia. However, the illness can be managed by psychosocial therapy and taking your medication as prescribed. With treatment, people with schizophrenia may be able to function more effectively.
Schizophrenia is thought of as a life-long disease, such as diabetes, but the symptoms can be reduced tremendously and quality of life improved dramatically with appropriate intervention.

What causes schizophrenia?

No single cause has been identified. Scientists have found that some people with schizophrenia have abnormalities in the structure of their brain, while others have an imbalance (too many or too few) of the chemicals that transmit messages in the brain. These chemicals, called neurotransmitters, are thought to affect your emotions, motivation, movement, mood, sleep, and appetite. Whatever the cause, it is important to understand that it is not your fault. It is not the result of poor parenting or weak willpower.
It is thought that schizophrenia is a genetic illness. It runs in families. 1% of the population suffers from schizophrenia. If you have a mother or father who suffers from it, you have a 10% chance of suffering from it. If you have an identical twin with it, you have a 50% chance of becoming schizophrenic. The closer you are genetically to an individual with schizophrenia, the greater your chances of suffering from it as well.
The exact cause is unknown, but the overwhelming evidence is that schizophrenia is a biological disorder transmitted genetically. Schizophrenia runs in families. 50% of affected identical twins develop the disorder. However, 50% don't, so there appears to be an environmental influence also.

Who is affected by schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia affects more than 2 million Americans, regardless of race, economic condition, or location. In fact there are 300,000 newly diagnosed cases each year. Men and women are at equal risk of developing this illness. However, most males become ill between the late teen years and 25 years old, while females typically develop symptoms between ages 25 and 30. Like high blood pressure and heart disease, schizophrenia can run in families. ...

How is schizophrenia treated?

Schizophrenia is treated with antipsychotic medications. Group psychotherapy and support from family or loved ones are also important. Depending on the severity of the condition, hospitalization may be necessary.
In addition to medications, treatment can also be behaviorally oriented to explicitly teach the social skills that patients did not develop normally. Since schizophrenia involves communication and thought disorders, forms of therapy that require these functions (psychotherapy, rational emotive therapy, etc) are not used. The actual content and distortion of a hallucination is not usually explored, either. ...
Currently, there is no method for preventing schizophrenia and there is no cure. Minimizing the impact of illness depends mainly on early diagnosis and, appropriate psychosocial treatment and medication.

What is schizophrenia? What are the symptoms?

Statistics of Prevalence of Mental Disorders List of links to answers about the statistics of prevalence of various mental and related disorders. Satisfaction Surveys Subjective Wellbeing and Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS): Test of your own estimate of your wellbeing and satisfaction. Psychoeducation

How rare is schizophrenia?

Between 1-3% of the population has schizophrenia. This appears to be true across cultures.

Is someone with schizophrenia dangerous?

Dangerous is a relative term. Most people who commit violent acts are NOT schizophrenic. Those who suffer from schizophrenia have a modestly elevated risk of violence, but this risk is greatly hyped by Hollywood. Most violence in our society is committed by someone with an active substance abuse problem or personality disorder, NOT schizophrenia. Clearly, if someone has a persecutory delusion and is very frightened, his behavior may be influenced by that delusion, so judgment must be used. ...

What are the diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia?

You must have at least 2 of several symptoms over a 1 month period (less if treated): delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, grossly disorganized behavior or catatonia, or negative symptoms.

How is schizophrenia diagnosed?

Schizophrenia is diagnosed by symptoms, the severity, and the duration. If there is a physical condition or other physical causing hallucinations, those problems are treated first before major psychiatric intervention. Several conditions occur at the same time as schizophrenia, but severe depression/suicide is often cited.

How common is schizophrenia?

Patients tend to die earlier than matched cohorts. The risk of suicide is elevated, and many common diseases are not treated or treatment is delayed for these patients. Many complain that all the physical medicine doctor saw was "mental illness" and case was closed. Psychiatric treatment can be delayed, too. Finally when the patient is quite ill, it is all too late for anything but desparate measures
Schizophrenia affects 2.2 million Americans, or 1.1 percent of the population. Schizophrenia affects more Americans than multiple sclerosis, insulin dependent diabetes and muscular dystrophy.

What is childhood-onset schizophrenia? How is it different from adult schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia affects children much less frequently than it does adults; about 1 in every 40,000 children is diagnosed, as opposed to 1 in every 100 adults. In general, the earlier a diagnosis is made, the more severe the disorder tends to be. Managing schizophrenia in children can also be more difficult, although there are many new antipsychotic medications that are proving to be helpful. The official symptoms are the same as those for adult schizophrenia (see Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia: Diagnosis). ...

Are people with schizophrenia violent?

People with schizophrenia are not especially prone to violence and often prefer to be left alone. Studies show that if people have no record of criminal violence before they develop schizophrenia and are not substance abusers, they are unlikely to commit crimes after they become ill. Most violent crimes are not committed by people with schizophrenia, and most people with schizophrenia do not commit violent crimes. ...

When does schizophrenia occur?

The average age of onset is 18 in men and 25 in women.

Who can be affected by schizophrenia?

Anyone can be affected by schizophrenia. It is equally present across all cultures, religions, ethnicities, and economic statuses.
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