Derived From The Greek Meaning Split Mind: Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is derived from the Greek meaning “split mind”. Schizophrenia is a chronic and disabling mental illness that causes the person to withdraw into a world of delusional thoughts and misperceptions. It is a form of psychosis in which there are disorganized thoughts, perceptual alterations, inappropriate affect, and decreased emotional response as all links to reality are lost. Not all People diagnosed with Schizophrenia experience all symptoms, the impact on personal, family, and social life will be most severe (Womble, 2011). There is no actual cause of schizophrenia. It is known that a genetic factor exists, but the hereditary mechanism is not clear, but it is known to run in families. An imbalance in the neurotransmitters dopamine and glutamate are also thought to play a possible part. It has also been noticed that people with schizophrenia have abnormalities in the brain structure. Schizophrenia is said to occur in 1 percent of the general population, but occurs in 10 percent of people who have a first-degree family member with the disorder, such as parent, brother, or sister, the risk is highest for someone with an identical twin that has schizophrenia. The twin will have a 40%-65% of developing the disorder. People with aunts, uncles, …show more content…
Positive symptoms are psychotic behaviors not seen in healthy people. These symptoms maybe sever or hardly noticeable, and they may come and go, all depending on the individual. Some positive symptoms may include hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders, illusions, agitation, autism, thought insertion, and word salad. Negative symptoms pertain abnormal emotions or behaviors. The may be harder to recognize and maybe mistaken for depression. These symptoms may include Blunt or flat affect, lack of energy, substance use, depression and suicidal acts, violent behavior, lack of motivation, and inability to initiate self-care (Womble,