Schizophrenia Disease – Treatment of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia Disease – Treatment of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness that affects 1% of the population. Despite intensive study, its molecular etiology remains enigmatic. Like many common diseases, schizophrenia is multifactor in origin, with both genetic and environmental contributions likely playing an important role in the manifestation of symptoms. Recent advances based on pharmacological studies, brain imaging analyses, and genetic research are now converging on tantalizing leads that point to a central role for several neurotransmitters, including dopamine, glutamate, and serotonin, that may interface with neurodevelopment defects reflecting disease-related genetic aberrations.

Some popular novels, plays and movies have encouraged us to think of schizophrenia in extremely narrow and dramatic terms. Schizophrenia has been presented quite often in terms of the split personality, two seemingly individual and separate people living within the same body.

"Schizophrenia is a cruel disease. The lives of those affected are often chronicles of constricted experiences, muted emotions, missed opportunities, unfulfilled expectations. It leads to a twilight existence, a twentieth-century underground man... It is in fact the single biggest blemish on the face of contemporary American medicine and social services; when the social history of our era is written, the plight of persons with schizophrenia will be recorded as having been a national scandal."

Treatment

1) Individuals with schizophrenia die at a younger age than do healthy people. Males have a 5.1 greater than expected early mortality rate than the general population, and females have a 5.6 greater risk of early death. Suicide is the single largest contributor to this excess mortality rate, which is 10 to 13 percent higher in schizophrenia than the general population.

2) It is critical that people with schizophrenia stay in treatment even after recovering from an acute episode. About 80 percent of those who stop taking their medications after an acute episode will have a relapse within one year, whereas only 30 percent of those who continue their medications will experience a relapse in the same time period.

3) Schizophrenia appears to be a combination of a thought disorder, mood disorder, and anxiety disorder. The medical management of schizophrenia often requires a combination of antipsychotic, antidepressant, and antianxiety medication. One of the biggest challenges of treatment is that many people don't keep taking the medications prescribed for the disorder. Medication therapies as well as numerous psychological rehabilitation programs are the mainstays of treatment. To learn more about non-drug therapies, click on the "Helping Yourself" button at the top of this page. Goals of therapy are to reduce schizophrenic symptoms, prevent return of symptoms, minimize side effects from medications, and help the individual function more normally in society.

4) Psychotherapy is not the treatment of choice for someone with schizophrenia. Used as an adjunct to a good medication plan, however, psychotherapy can help maintain the individual on their medication, learn needed social skills, and support the person's weekly goals and activities in their community. This may include advice, reassurance, education, modeling, limit setting, and reality testing with the therapist. Encouragement in setting small goals and reaching them can often be helpful.

5) One of the most effective tools in treating schizophrenia is by Programs for Assertive Community Treatment, an intensive team effort in local communities to help people stay out of the hospital and live independently. Serving as a hospital without walls, PACT professionals are available around the clock and meet their clients where they live, providing at-home support at whatever level is needed, for whatever problems need to be solved. Professionals can make sure that clients are taking their medication and help them meet the challenges of daily life – every day tasks ranging from grocery shopping and keeping doctor appointments to managing money and getting along with others.

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