Schizophrenia Case Study Essay

There are over a hundred different types of mental disorders but one of the most common psychotic disorder is schizophrenia. Schizophrenia affects approximately 3.5 million people in the United States. The symptoms include: “hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking (speech), grossly disorganized or abnormal motor behavior (including catatonia) and negative symptoms.” ( Barnhill 19) Symptoms of schizophrenia appear from anywhere between youth and late adulthood and must be persistent for a length of at least six months to be concluded as schizophrenia. DSM-IV analyzes the schizoaffective disorder in which patients must show signs of “major depressive or bipolar disorder concurrent with having active symptoms of schizophrenia.” (Barnhill 20) DSM-V analyzes the major mood disorder during the duration of the phases that require extensive attention to the longitudinal course. All three case studies display schizophrenia by its most common symptom of auditory hallucinations. Examining all three studies drew …show more content…
Allen then got into the driver seat and drove the car into a parked car across the street. Mrs. Allen displayed several abnormal behaviors such as talking to herself, fidgeting, short eye contact, cognitive dysfunction and auditory hallucinations. She began to have the auditory hallucinations at the age of five and was diagnosed with childhood-onset schizophrenia; she was hospitalized regularly since age eleven. Due to Mrs. Allen’s diagnoses of schizophrenia at such a young age she became deprive of social learning that is critical to learn during a child. Clozapine was given to Mrs. Allen to stop her auditory hallucinations that was successful for one year; gaining thirty-five pounds in the