What is Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling mental illness. It affects men and women with equal frequency. People suffering from schizophrenia may have the following symptoms:

• Delusions, false personal beliefs held with conviction in spite of reason or evidence to the contrary, not explained by that person's cultural context
• Hallucinations, perceptions (can be sound, sight, touch, smell, or taste) that occur in the absence of an actual external stimulus (Auditory hallucinations, those of voice or other sounds, are the most common type of hallucinations in schizophrenia.)
• Disorganized thoughts and behaviors
• Disorganized speech
• Catatonic behavior, in which the affected person's body may be rigid and the person may be unresponsive

The term schizophrenia is Greek in origin, and in the Greek meant "split mind." This is not an accurate medical term. In Western culture, some people have come to believe that schizophrenia refers to a split-personality disorder. These are two very different disorders, and people with schizophrenia do not have separate personalities.

Schizophrenia and other mental health disorders have fairly strict criteria for diagnosis. Time of onset as well as length and characteristics of symptoms are all factors. The active symptoms of schizophrenia must be present at least 6 months, or only 1 month if treated.

• Who is affected?
  • Estimates of how many people are diagnosed with this disorder vary. The illness affects about 1% of the population. More than 2 million Americans suffer from schizophrenia at any given time, and 100,000-200,000 people are newly diagnosed every year. Fifty percent of people in hospital psychiatric care have schizophrenia.
  • Schizophrenia is usually diagnosed in people aged 17-35 years. The illness appears earlier in men (in the late teens or early twenties) than in women (who are affected in the twenties to early thirties). Many of them are disabled. They may not be able to hold down jobs or even perform tasks as simple as conversations. Some may be so incapacitated that they are unable to do activities most people take for granted, such as showering or preparing a meal. Many are homeless. Some recover enough to live a life relatively free from assistance.

Schizophrenia Causes

The causes of schizophrenia are not known. However, an interplay of genetic, biological, environmental, and psychological factors are thought to be involved. We do not yet understand all the causes and other issues involved, but current research is making steady progress towards elucidating and defining causes of schizophrenia.

In biological models of schizophrenia, genetic (familial) predisposition, infectious agents, allergies, and disturbances in metabolism have all been investigated.

Schizophrenia is known to run in families. Thus, the risk of illness in an identical twin of a person with schizophrenia is 40-50%. A child of a parent suffering from schizophrenia has a 10% chance of developing the illness. The risk of schizophrenia in the general population is about 1%.

The current concept is that multiple genes are involved in the development of schizophrenia and that factors such as prenatal (intrauterine), perinatal, and nonspecific stressors are involved in creating a disposition or vulnerability to develop the illness. Neurotransmitters (chemicals allowing the communication between nerve cells) have also been implicated in the development of schizophrenia. The list of neurotransmitters under scrutiny is long, but special attention has been given to dopamine, serotonin, and glutamate.

Also, recent studies have identified subtle changes in brain structure and function, indicating that, at least in part, schizophrenia could be a disorder of the development of the brain.

It is important for doctors to investigate all reasonable medical causes for any acute change in someone’s mental health or behavior. Sometimes a medical condition that might be treated easily, if diagnosed, is responsible for symptoms that resemble those of schizophrenia.

continue: Symptoms of Schizophrenia

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Reviewed: 03/2006