Mental health articles

schizophrenia definition and symptoms Schizophrenia is a mental illness, which is characterized by profound distortions
in the person’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. The person starts
to see the world very differently from the way they normally do and from
the way others see it. The person loses touch with reality.
Schizophrenia can happen to anyone but is more likely to affect people
for the first time in their early twenties. Some people will only have one
episode of schizophrenia and will make a full recovery; unfortunately
others do not and will have further episodes.
There are a number of core signs and symptoms of schizophrenia,
which are described below. However, each person who has schizophrenia
is likely to be affected very differently from another.

Hallucinations
Auditory hallucinations are common in schizophrenia. Voices may give a
running commentary on what the person is doing, make insulting remarks
or may tell the person to do something. The voices tend to say negative
things and they are usually very distressing for the person.
Delusions
Delusions are false beliefs. In schizophrenia delusions can have many
themes, but one of the most common is persecutory beliefs. For example
the person may believe that everybody hates them or keeps staring at
them. Another common theme is that others or machines can read their
mind or have the power to take their thoughts away or place new thoughts
into their mind.

Thought disorder
This is where the person has problems in organizing their thoughts and
results in others having great difficulty in understanding them due to their
speech being disorganized. When the person talks everything can sound
jumbled up and sometimes they will make up words that do not exist, for
example ‘I never eat sphericks’.

It may be difficult to recognize these symptoms in a person with intellectual
disabilities if they are unable to describe them. However, the
person’s behaviour may suggest their presence, e.g. if they keep brushing
at their clothes as if to remove something, or start to shout or talk to
someone that no one else is aware of. Sometimes people with intellectual
disabilities show these behaviours ordinarily, e.g. talking to themselves. It
is when there is a change that we are alerted to the possibility of there being a health
problem.
The symptoms described above are psychotic symptoms. These
happenwhen the person is at their most unwell and they are usually treated
with medication immediately. But there is another side to schizophrenia
that can happenwhen the psychotic symptoms have decreased. The person
can have a loss of motivation and energy levels. They may find it difficult to
do everyday tasks. It is important that this is seen as part of the mental
health problem and the person is not just seen as lazy.
Jane is 22 years old and lives with her parents. She has mild intellectual
disabilities and has an active social life and has a boyfriend. She goes to a
day centre four days a week. Jane’s key worker has informed her mother
that her behaviour has been a bit odd at the centre lately. She isn’t socializing
with her friends like she normally does and spends long periods of
time alone with her hands over her ears. Staff have also noticed that she
appears to be talking to herself quite a lot. Jane’s mum says she’s been a
bit strange at home as well. She will now only eat food that comes
straight out of a wrapper. Jane will not touch anything cooked by her
mum; she says that it has been poisoned.

Tags: schizophrenia, symptoms