Schizophrenia, witch in Greek mean split mind, is a brain illness that affects 1% people all over the world. The persons can be young or older, women or men, it doesn’t matter. It’s diagnosis can be more difficult than it might seem because the symptoms of schizophrenia can be similar at times to other major brain disorders such as bipolar disorder or even major depression.
Schizophrenia is characterized like a disruption in cognition and emotion, affecting the most fundamental human attributes: language, thought, perception, affect, and sense of self. If this human attributes are affected, can you imagine how it is like to be a schizophrenic person? Even not, it is sure that is not very pleasant.
Schizophrenia symptoms are divided into three categories, witch are: positive symptoms, disorganized symptoms, and negative symptoms.
Most commons symptoms are delusions – patients are thinking that are somebody but in fact they aren’t, and hallucinations – hear voices, see something that isn’t there, think that they are being watched, etc.
Disorganized thinking and disorganized speech are also present to the patients with schizophrenia. It is what we call “thought disorder” or “ word salads”. Other disorganized symptoms are: difficulty understanding, poor concentration, poor memory, difficulty expressing thoughts, difficulty integrating thoughts, feelings and behavior .
Catatonic behavior is a characterized by stupor/inactivity – patient can stand still for a long period of time, staring at something, and nothing can not disturb him.
From negative symptoms we remember: lack of emotion - the inability to enjoy activities as much as before, low energy - the person sits around and sleeps much more than normal, and lack of interest in life and low motivation.
And all this signs of schizophrenia appear because the brain doesn’t work properly, dopamine and glutamate neurotransmitters are probably the cause.
In present, the scientists try to find a proper treatment regarded to dopamine and glutamate neurotransmitters, and it might work.
Visit my Schizophrenia website for more information on this subject. Also, don't forget to check out the Paranoid Schizophrenia page.
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