Understanding Schizophrenia

Understanding Schizophrenia

Topic

The topic that I have chosen for this paper is schizophrenia. I have heard of it before but have little knowledge about the disorder so this will give me a full understanding of schizophrenia as a whole. The goal of my research is to find out what causes schizophrenia and if there is treatment for the disease. Schizophrenia is disorder that can happen to someone at any time in their life. Schizophrenia is a disorder that includes confusion, agitation, delusions, psychosis, bizarre behaviors and will also cause social withdrawal. Schizophrenia was introduced in 1908 by Eugen Bleuler. The brain has billions of nerve cells these nerve cells send and receive information from one another. These nerve cells produce and release neurotransmitters. If an individual suffers from schizophrenia the neurotransmitters fail to send the information to one another. (Tanaka, 2014)

Schizophrenia is typically something that happens to someone randomly and is known as an abnormal social behavior brought on by the inability to disseminate between what is real and what is just a vivid delusion. Typically an individual diagnosis is led on by someone observing them committing awkward behaviors or by the omission of the symptoms. There are four different types of symptoms positive, negative, cognitive, and emotional. Each type has varies degrees ranging from none delusional to very delusional. (Yiwei, 2014) Because there is still no laboratory or physical test that can be conducted to find out if an individual is suffering from schizophrenia.

There are many different reasons why an individual might develop schizophrenia such as genetics, chemical imbalance, environment, drugs, and unusual stress. The faster and earlier that intervention are introduced the faster recovery is possible. The best possible treatment is suggest to be a combination of medication and counseling. Although medication and counseling has proven to be fairly effective the biggest issue is the inability to keep individuals on their medication. (Lachman, 2014)

Thesis

Schizophrenia only effects about 2.2 million adults in the United States and only 1 percent of the globe deals with this disease. (Lachman et al, 2014) While with the use of medication they can live fulfilling lives many of them go off of the medication within the first year. The idea of this paper is to examine schizophrenia as a whole and find out efficacy medication has in the improvement of their lives. Also the reasons why some individuals avoid treatment entirely.

Annotated Bibliography

Tanaka, C., Yotsumoto, K., Tatsumi, E., Sasada, T., Taira, M., Tanaka, K., & ... Hashimoto, T. (2014). Improvement of functional independence of patients with acute schizophrenia through early occupational therapy: a pilot quasi-experimental controlled study. Clinical Rehabilitation, 28(8), 740-747. Retrieved from- http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ffef4b64-bbda-4637-920f-851c5653c223%40sessionmgr4003&vid=5&hid=4104

This is an important article because it is about the promotion of independence in schizophrenia patients. This article also examines a quasi-experimental controlled study on the use of actual schizophrenia based pills versus placebos and the inefficiency of placebos. The study used 85 patients only 46 however had schizophrenia. It discusses different medications used to combat schizophrenia symptoms. This article also focuses on the importance of one on one therapy with a therapist or occupational therapy. The article found that the use of occupational therapy was effective for schizophrenia but only when used concurrently with medication.

Yiwei, L., Mayumi, W., Hatsumi, Y., & Kouhei, A. (2014). Characteristics linked to the reduction of stigma towards schizophrenia: a pre-and-post study of parents of adolescents attending an educational program. BMC Public Health, 14(1), 1-18. doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-258. Retrieved from- http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy2.apus.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=ffef4b64-bbda-4637-920f-851c5653c223%40sessionmgr4003&vid=8&hid=4104

This article focuses on the stigma linked to individuals suffering from schizophrenia. This is important to my study because much of the schizophrenia population stop taking medication within the first year because of the discrimination they are receiving from the diagnosis. The study uses a devaluation-discrimination scale to evaluate the stigma linked to schizophrenia. It suggests several ideas to reduce the stigma. This study used over 44000 people and used a questionnaire to evaluate the current stigma ranging from high school students to adults. After the questionnaire was conducted only 2690 of them agreed to continue on with the study. They used web based programs and other factors to get a regression in the stigma.

Lachman, A. (2014). New developments in diagnosis and treatment update: Schizophrenia/first episode psychosis in children and adolescents. Journal Of Child & Adolescent Mental Health, 26(2), 109-124. doi:10.2989/17280583.2014.924416. Retrieved from- http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa051688

This article is important because it’s introducing new ideas to the treatment and diagnosis. The purpose of this article is to introduce atypical antipsychotics and compare them to older agents. This study was conducted using 1493 patients with schizophrenia at first and by the end of the end of the study over 70 percent of the patients discontinued the new medication. The suggestion was by those who discontinued the new medication was that the side effects were too harsh. Of those patients that discontinued a majority were taking the new generation drug referred to as olanzapine. The biggest issue was the development of metabolic syndrome and a slew of other things but they say with the introduction of perphenazine the side effects will be reduced.