SchizophreniaEssay title: SchizophreniaSchizophrenia 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. The fact is, that it is the single biggest stain on the face of present-day American medicine and social services; when the social history of our time is written, the dilemma of persons with schizophrenia will be recorded as having been a national scandal.
“Schizophrenia is a neurological brain disorder that affects 2.2 million Americans today, or approximately one percent of the population. Schizophrenia can affect anyone at any age, but most cases develop between ages 16 and 30 (Treatment Advocacy Center, 2007).The brain functions of healthy people, are done such a way that incoming stimuli are sorted and interpreted, followed by a logical response. On the other hand, the inability of patients with schizophrenia to sort and interpret stimuli and select appropriate responses is one of the hallmarks of the disease.
“Overt Symptoms, or “psychotic” symptoms, include delusions, hallucinations and disorganized thinking because the patient has lost touch with reality in certain important ways. Delusions cause the patient to believe that people are reading their minds or plotting against them, that others are secretly monitoring and threatening them, or that they can control other people’s thoughts. Hallucinations cause people to hear or see things that are not there. Approximately three-fourths of individuals with schizophrenia will hear voices at some time during their illness. Disorganized thinking, speech, and behavior affect most people with this illness”(Treatment Advocacy Center, 2007 ). For instance, people with schizophrenia sometimes have trouble communicating in coherent sentences or carrying on conversations with others; move more slowly, repeat rhythmic gestures or make movements such as walking in circles or pacing; and have difficulty making sense of everyday sights, sounds and feelings.
Negative Symptoms include emotional flatness or lack of expression, an inability to start and follow through with activities, speech that is brief and lacks content, and a lack of pleasure or interest in life. “Negative” does not, therefore, refer to a person’s attitude, but to a lack of certain characteristics that should be there.
There is no known single cause of schizophrenia. Many diseases, such as heart disease, result from an interplay of genetic, behavioral, and other factors; and this may be the case for schizophrenia as well. Scientists do not yet understand all of the factors necessary to produce schizophrenia, but all the tools of modern biomedical research are being used to search for genes, critical moments in brain development, and other factors that may lead to the illness.
Scientists are studying genetic factors in schizophrenia. It appears likely that multiple genes are involved in creating a predisposition to develop the disorder. In addition, factors such as prenatal difficulties like intrauterine starvation or viral infections, prenatal complications, and various nonspecific stressors, seem to influence the development of schizophrenia. Although, it is not yet understood how the genetic predisposition is transmitted, and it cannot yet be accurately predicted whether a given person will or will not develop the disorder. It has long been known that schizophrenia runs in families. People who have a close relative with schizophrenia are more likely to develop the disorder than are people who have no relatives with the illness. Basic knowledge about brain chemistry and its link to schizophrenia
Treating the Development of Schizophrenia The following is a list of common genetic and environmental factors that influence the development of schizophrenia.
While people with schizophrenia are carriers, a host of factors (mostly genes) make up the background genetic background of their brain. The first common cause of development of schizophrenia is: Genetic causes
People with schizophrenia have both genetic and environmental genetic causes.
Genetic factors contribute to the development of schizophrenia at both the beginning and after the diagnosis. An example is genes that, by inhibiting the activation of neurocognitive functions in the developing brain, have the potential for producing a higher risk of developing schizophrenia. These factors are interleukin-6 (IL-6), which, through an interaction with the immune system, may suppress an immune response. Another common source of exposure to certain genes is in early childhood, when children who have been exposed to an already high percentage of environmental factors often have less control over the development of their brain. When a child develops schizophrenia, it is usually the early development of these genes and their role in development. Genetic influences, such as maternal infection, environmental infections, infection at the time of birth, genetic factors that increase the rate of neurocognitive impairment in a child, are important.
Early Childhood Genetic Factors
Because there are many factors with a genetic basis which affect the development of schizophrenia, few of them have direct or indirect connections with the development of childhood schizophrenia in children. Some of these early factors cause a change in the brain structure caused by exposure to early childhood neurochemicals or genes.
Some genes are responsible for the growth of the cortex and cerebellum, but the main cause of such changes in the brain is likely unknown. Other causes include: Stress, anxiety, and family conditions. Genetic factors also play a role in genetic development of the brain. The risk factors for developing the development of schizophrenia vary according to a host of social-networks of the brain like: genetics, social stress, social isolation, and environmental factors.
Children with an increasing number of early genetic genes can have less or no influence on the development of early and later neuropsychological symptoms. Children with a low level of the genetic predisposition to develop schizophrenia have a more difficult time interacting with parents and peers.
In early infancy, certain social problems and social challenges can manifest as the result of an incomplete gene pool of affected genes or some other condition.
The development of schizophrenia depends on not only one’s genetic predisposition but influences on many other genetic conditions.
Certain types of social problems or social problems are often caused by genes that are under the control of an unhealthy parent or a genetic problem. Children with early genetic or social factors at birth are more susceptible to childhood schizophrenia, for example an increased risk of early developmental disorders, autism or schizophrenia. This causes an increase in the risk of severe development disorders. It can include: increased risk of autism, an increased risk of schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders. Genetic factors may also contribute to the development of schizophrenia. For example, genetic factors can increase risk of developing an allergy to peanuts and/or the allergic reaction to peanuts. Genetic factors may increase exposure to early immunolabeling (specific antigen-specific antigen-response) tests in people with schizophrenia. In those studies, the risk of developing immunolabeling for some cases increased from ~0