Schizophrenia

            
             Schizophrenia is a most misunderstood disease. It will affect one in every100 Americans during their lifetime, yet too often it is hidden in the closet by families and ignored by professionals. A revolution is underway, for schizophrenia is emerging. Schizophrenia is now known to be a disease of the brain and is not caused by any guilty acts or failures of the patient. Like diabetics, schizophrenics may be able to control their symptoms with medication. This paper will discuss the effects, symptoms, and treatments for this illness.
             Schizophrenia is a mental disorder marked by the loss of contact with reality. When a person's thinking, feeling, and behavior is abnormal, it interferes with his or her ability to function in everyday life. Delusions, hallucinations, and irregular thinking and emotions are produced. If these signs are present, he or she may have the mental illness called schizophrenia. Inter-episode residual symptoms are common. This often-chronic illness can be characterized by three phases that merge into one another without absolute, clear boundaries between them. The first phase is the acute phase. During this florid psychotic phase, patients exhibit severe psychotic symptoms, such as delusions and/or hallucinations and severely disorganized thinking, and are usually unable to care for themselves appropriately. Negative symptoms often become more severe as well. In the next stage, the stabilization phase, acute psychotic symptoms decrease in severity. This phase may last for 6 or more months after the onset of an acute episode. The third phase is the stable phase. Symptoms are relatively stable and, if present at all, are almost always less severe than in the acute phase. Patients can be asymptomatic; others may manifest non-psychotic symptoms, such as tension, anxiety, depression, or insomnia. When negative (deficit) symptoms and/or positive symptoms, such as delusions, hallucinations, or thought disorder, persist, they are often present in attenuated, non-psychotic forms (e.