Schizophrenia???

What is Schizophrenia?


Schizophrenia is a long term mental illness. The disease is characterised by positive and negative symptoms. The positive symptoms are those such as hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that don't exist) and delusions (strange fixed beliefs that are not true), while negative symptoms include lack of emotion, limited speech and an inability to enjoy any activities.

There are different types of schizophrenia, including:

* Paranoid schizophrenia: Positive symptoms are severe (patients may hear many voices, see strange things, have many strange or disturbing beliefs)
* Disorganised schizophrenia: Patients have disorganised speech and behaviour
* Catatonic schizophrenia: Patients will have a movement disturbance, either being very active and restless or not moving at all for extended periods
* Residual schizophrenia: Negative symptoms are severe with only mild positive symptoms

Who gets Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia affects about 1% of the general public. However, there is considerable variability between countries and even cities. In Australia, the prevalence of schizophrenia is around 1.5% of the population.

The onset of schizophrenia occurs around the late teens and early twenties for males, and the late twenties to mid-thirties for females. The incidence of schizophrenia is higher in males than females, migrants than native-born people, and urban regions than rural regions.

Predisposing Factors

Schizophrenia is a complex condition with many predisposing factors. These can be grouped into genetic, environmental and racial factors.


Genetic factors

Schizophrenia has a strong genetic component. If an individual's parent or parents had schizophrenia, then that individual has a much higher risk of also developing schizophrenia. This does not just apply to parents; the more relatives have schizophrenia, the higher the risk of developing the condition.

Being male is also recognised as a predisposing factor for schizophrenia.


Environmental factors

Some of the environmental factors that have been associated with an increased risk of schizophrenia are:

* Maternal smoking, diabetes, and rubella infection during pregnancy
* Premature birth and low birth weight
* Complications during birth that cause a baby to be without oxygen for some time
* Lower socioeconomic status
* Living in large cities
* Stressful events in early childhood
* Drug taking. Drugs such as amphetamines and cocaine have effects similar to the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. These drugs can also trigger schizophrenia. There is an increasing amount of evidence that cannabis damages the brain and can lead to schizophrenia. It is thought that cannabis doubles a person's risk of schizophrenia.


Racial factors

The highest rates of schizophrenia are among African immigrants in the USA and UK. There are also higher rates in many other ethnic minority groups.


Progression

Schizophrenia usually starts between the ages of 16 and 30. The condition tends to start earlier in men and later in women. There is usually a milder form of the condition first that includes depression, sleep changes, anxiety, poor concentration and social isolation. This early phase usually lasts 2 to 5 years. After this time, patients usually develop the positive symptoms (like hallucinations). This is often called the psychotic phase. Psychotic symptoms tend to occur in episodes of varying duration.

There are several ways that schizophrenia can then progress:

* Episodes of psychotic symptoms with some residual symptoms in between (usually negative symptoms)
* Episodes with no symptoms in between (the patient is healthy between episodes)
* Continuous symptoms that do not change over time
* Single episode with no ongoing symptoms
* Single episode with some ongoing symptoms (these can include hearing just one voice, smelling something, poor self care, social isolation or other symptoms that occur much less than during the episode)