Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness characterised by disturbances in the person's thoughts, perceptions, emotions and behaviour. Its affects around 1 in every 100 people, and usually starts between the ages of 15 and 35.
The symptoms are divided into two categories: positive and negative symptoms:
Positive symptoms include:
- Delusions (false personal beliefs)
- Hallucinations
- Disorganised thinking (usually expressed through abnormal spoken language)
- Disorganised behaviour
Negative symptoms are often less easy to spot and include:
- Loss of motivation
- Loss of feeling (loss of the ability to express or feel any emotion)
- Poverty of speech (reduced amount, vague, repetitive)
- Flat presentation (reduction in facial expression, eye contact, body language, tone of voice)
- Cognitive impairment (problems with attention, concentration, memory)
Myths of Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is one of the least understood mental illness, which often contributes to stigmatization of the suffer. An article published in The Irish Times in October 2010 highlighted the damaging perceptions of schizophrenia. The most common myths include:
- Schizophrenia means a split personality - in fact this is another psychiatric illness called 'dissociative disorder'.
- People with schizophrenia are violent
- The family causes schizophrenia - there is no definite cause of schizophrenia but possible causes include genes, environment, biochemical and drug misuse.
- There is no hope for recovery
Treatment & Recovery
Early recognition and treatment have a positive effect on the outcome and long-term health of the sufferer. Estimations suggest that 25% will make a full recovery, 40% will have recurrent episodes, and 35% will experience long term schizophrenia.
(Source: Recover.ie)
For further information there are two Irish websites which contain vast amounts of information and advice. The first is recover.ie and the second is shineonline.ie
The following video gives an honest and insightful account of the life of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia: