Schizophrenia, << `SKIHT` suh FREE nee uh, >> is a severe mental disease characterized by unpredictable disturbances in thinking. The word schizophrenia means a splitting of the mind. It refers to the characteristic schizophrenic behavior of withdrawing from reality and thinking in illogical, confused patterns. The term does not mean that a patient has more than one personality.
Schizophrenia is one of the most common mental disorders. It afflicts about 1 percent of the world’s population. Most patients develop the disease from their late teens to mid-20’s. Men tend to develop it earlier than women and often more severely.
Many people with schizophrenia develop delusions and behave as though they live in a fantasy world. They may hear “voices” that others cannot hear. The patients may believe that these “voices” carry messages from important people, or even from God. People with schizophrenia often suffer disturbances in mood and behavior. Some patients seem to feel no emotions, but others may display inappropriate emotions, such as laughing at sad situations. Some patients withdraw from their family and friends and talk mainly to themselves or to their “voices.”
Physicians do not know the exact cause of schizophrenia. Viral infections, drug abuse, or trauma during birth may increase a person’s risk of developing the disease. Abnormal brain chemistry is known to play a role. Chemicals called neurotransmitters, which allow nerve cells to communicate with each other, have been found at abnormal levels in some people with schizophrenia. Medical imaging studies show that schizophrenics have less neural tissue in their brains than do healthy individuals. This loss of brain tissue occurs in regions controlling short-term memory, which is also impaired in patients with schizophrenia. As a person grows from an infant to an adult, millions of connections are established and eliminated between nerve cells in the brain. Researchers think that certain variants of the genes (hereditary factors) that regulate this activity may cause too many brain cells and connections to be eliminated, leading to schizophrenia.
Before the 1950’s, most people suffering from schizophrenia had to remain in mental hospitals. Since then, scientists have developed drugs that block the action of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, on certain nerve cells. In most cases, these drugs do not cure schizophrenia, but they usually reduce the symptoms so that most patients can leave the hospital. Scientists have developed other drugs that act on a different neurotransmitter called serotonin. These newer drugs control the symptoms of schizophrenia with fewer side effects.
Psychotherapy and rehabilitation programs can help patients live outside the hospital. A small number of patients do not respond to treatment and must remain hospitalized.
See also Dopamine ; Mental illness (Schizophrenia) ; National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) .
