Causes, Treatment, and Symptoms of Schizophrenia

Causes, Treatment, and Symptoms of Schizophrenia
Introduction
Psychological research has come up with an in-depth study of the human behavior. In studying human behavior, they have discovered several dysfunctions in the human nervous system that cause an imbalance in the normal activities of people. Schizophrenia has gotten defined by psychologists and medics as a disabling, chronic and severe ailment of the brain. This illness causes a shift in the normal functioning of the brain causing the victim to act abnormally. The victims have unusual experiences that range from believing other people want to harm them, read their minds, direct their thoughts, and hearing voices that are not heard by others. There are instances when the victims of the ailment seem fine but when they communicate there is no sense in what they say.
Statistics shows that this disease affects many and up to 1% of the global population has suffered from it. The United States is an example of about 2million people being fatalities. In studying this ailment, several factors interests psychologists. These factors include the causes of the sickness, the various types of schizophrenia, the symptoms as well as the treatment of the disease. This paper will, therefore, address the factors above in details for a deeper understanding of the ailment.
Causes of Schizophrenia
The real causes of this disease have not gotten defined but through research varying brain structure and chemistry as well as the environment and genetic factors are discovered to expose one to it.

Scientists have postulated that the first cause is as a result of an imbalance in the chemical composition of the brain. Chemical reactions that are linked and that involve neurotransmitters have a role in schizophrenia. Notably, it has been discovered that the brains of those with this disease significantly differs from that of healthy people. After death, studies have shown that the brain tissue of those with this illness is different and issues of brain development between birth and puberty may be used to explain this aspect.
As posited by scientists, the latter factor that involve the genes is inherited. One can suffer from this disease because a member of their family lineage suffered from the same. The association between the environment and the genes can also lead to this ailment. Surrounding factors like complications during birth, being exposed to viruses or malnutrition and other psychosocial factors are found to contribute to contracting the disease.
Types of Schizophrenia
This ailment gets subdivided into five types. The first type is the schizophreniform disorder believed to be short term. Secondly, we have the delusional disorder that has delusions as its primary symptoms. Additionally, there is the brief psychotic disorder that has brief symptoms as its name suggests. The final symptoms are the schizoaffective disorder with bipolar and depression symptoms as well as the shared psychotic disorder that makes healthy people share in delusions of those affected with this ailment.
Symptoms
The symptoms of schizophrenia range from cognitive, negative to positive symptoms. Cognitive symptoms are said to be delicate. They are not easily found in patients with the sickness unless tests are critically performed. These symptoms include challenges with the working memory, difficulty in getting focused, and reduced executive operations. Negative symptoms are severe to notice since one is thought to be depressed or experience conditions that are everyday issues. These people have little conversations, are displeased with life, and cannot start and complete planned activities.
Moreover, they look lazy and lack self-drive in helping themselves. The latter symptoms can be severe if one is not receiving treatment. These victims lose touch with real life and experience delusions, hallucinations, movement disorders and thinking disorders. Healthy people do not experience these positive signs.
Treatment
Due to lack of surety on the actual causes of this ailment, physicians focus on elimination of the symptoms of schizophrenia. They have therefore come up with psychosocial and antipsychotic medications for the disease. Psychosocial medications aid patients in dealing with daily challenges caused by the illness. These challenges are mostly social and about their interaction with the society. On the other hand, antipsychotic medications are meant to curb efficiently the symptoms of the disease. The use of this medication helps control psychotic symptoms of the sickness.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Schizophrenia can be a very dangerous illness if not taken into serious consideration. The assumptions that a delusive person or a desperate person is and will be okay can result in serious health damages. Scientists and psychologists have done a wholesome study of this disease, and it is therefore recommended that the society should watch out for this disease to fully contain it. As proposed by medical practitioners, if we handle the symptoms of schizophrenia we carry the disease because preventing sickness is better off than waiting to cure it.

Bibliography
Weinberger, Daniel R, and Paul Harrison. Schizophrenia. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Internet resource.