How Does Schizophrenia Affect The Person – Toby Pillinger does not work for, consult with, own stock in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and discloses no other relevant relationships other than his academic appointment.
Schizophrenia is considered a disorder of the mind that affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves. However, our latest study shows that other organs besides the brain also change at the onset of the disease.
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How Does Schizophrenia Affect The Person
Scientists have long known that people with schizophrenia have much higher rates of physical illness compared to the general population, contributing to extremely high rates of premature death. People with this disorder die 15-20 years earlier than the average person.
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This poor physical health is often considered a secondary consequence of illness. For example, antipsychotic drugs are associated with an increased risk of weight gain and type 2 diabetes. Lifestyle factors are also thought to play a role. A person with debilitating mental symptoms is more likely to give up exercise and have a poor diet.
However, in recent years, researchers have noticed that people newly diagnosed with schizophrenia who are not yet taking any medication show signs of physiological changes, such as an overactive immune system. Is it possible that schizophrenia is actually a disorder of the whole body?
My colleagues and I examined the evidence of physiological changes in the body at the onset of schizophrenia and compared them with the evidence of brain changes in the same group of people. We pooled data from multiple studies looking at markers of inflammation, hormone levels, and heart disease risk factors, including glucose and cholesterol levels. We also combined data from studies that looked at brain structure, levels of various brain chemicals and markers of brain activity.
We have shown that compared to the general population, early onset schizophrenia is associated with changes in brain structure and function. We also showed that early schizophrenia is associated with various changes in the body. We calculated the magnitude of these changes using a statistical measure known as effect size. Early in schizophrenia, we observed that there was no difference in effect size for changes in the brain compared to effect size for changes around the body, suggesting that schizophrenia may indeed be a whole-body disorder and should be treated as such.
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There are three theories that may explain how changes in the brain may be related to changes around the body in schizophrenia.
First, dysfunction around the body can cause changes in the brain that eventually lead to schizophrenia. This process has been observed in some rare cancers that produce antibodies that target the brain and cause psychosis. If the tumor is removed, the psychotic experiences will improve.
Second, the symptoms of schizophrenia can cause physical health problems. An example of this is the stressful state of psychosis, which leads to an increase in the level of the steroid hormone cortisol. High cortisol levels are associated with weight gain, diabetes and high blood pressure.
Third, schizophrenia symptoms and physical health disorders may arise through different mechanisms but through a common risk factor. An example of this is how starvation experienced by a pregnant mother increases the chances of her child developing both diabetes and schizophrenia in adulthood. The increased risk of schizophrenia may be related to impaired brain development of the child due to the mother’s poor diet. An increased risk of diabetes may result from changes in the child’s ability to metabolize glucose, again due to maternal malnutrition.
Types Of Schizophrenia And Their Differences
We need to do more to determine whether changes in the body are the cause or effect of schizophrenia. One approach is to look at those people who are at risk of developing schizophrenia, to see how changes in the body develop in those who develop schizophrenia compared to those who do not. More work is also needed to determine how changes in the body respond to changes in the severity of schizophrenia symptoms.
Finally, the majority of premature deaths seen in schizophrenia are due to cardiovascular disease. The average life expectancy of people with schizophrenia has not improved in recent decades. Research is needed to determine whether early referral to physical health care reduces schizophrenia mortality.
Write an article and join a growing community of over 172,600 scientists and researchers from 4,770 institutions. Schizophrenia involves detachment from reality, including hallucinations and delusions. It also affects your ability to recognize symptoms. It is a serious but treatable condition.
Schizophrenia is a psychiatric condition that seriously affects your physical and mental well-being. It disrupts your brain by interfering with things like your thoughts, memory, feelings, and behavior. As a result, you may have problems in many areas of your daily life. Untreated schizophrenia often disrupts your relationships (professional, social, romantic and others). It can also cause you to have trouble organizing your thoughts and you may behave in ways that put you at risk of injury or other illnesses.
Signs And Symptoms Of Schizophrenia
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Psychiatrists used to refer to different types of schizophrenia as paranoid schizophrenia and catatonic schizophrenia. But these types have not been very helpful in diagnosing or treating schizophrenia. Instead, experts now consider schizophrenia to be a spectrum of conditions including:
Schizophrenia begins between the ages of 15 and 25 in men and people assigned male at birth (AMAB) and between the ages of 25 and 35 in women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB). It also tends to affect men and women in equal numbers. About 20% of new cases of schizophrenia occur in people over the age of 45. These cases tend to be more common in men and people with AMAB.
Schizophrenia in children is rare but possible. If schizophrenia begins in childhood, it is usually more severe and more difficult to treat.
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Many people with schizophrenia are unable to recognize that they have symptoms of schizophrenia. But others can. These are the five main symptoms of schizophrenia
There is no single cause of schizophrenia. Experts suspect that schizophrenia occurs for a variety of reasons. Among the three main reasons:
Experts have not found any specific cause of schizophrenia, so they cannot say for sure whether genetics is the cause of schizophrenia. But if you have a family history of schizophrenia – especially a parent or sibling – you have a much higher risk of developing the disease.
Your health care provider (or someone close to you) may be able to diagnose schizophrenia or related disorders based on a combination of the questions they ask, the symptoms you describe, or by observing your actions. They will also ask questions to rule out other possible causes of your symptoms. They then compare the results with the criteria needed to diagnose schizophrenia.
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There are no diagnostic tests for schizophrenia. However, health care providers may perform tests to rule out other conditions before diagnosing schizophrenia. The most likely types of tests include:
Schizophrenia is incurable but often treatable. In a small percentage of cases, people can completely recover from schizophrenia. But it is not a cure, because it is impossible to know who will get sick again and who won’t. For this reason, experts consider those who recover from the condition to be “in remission.”
Your health care provider is best able to tell you how long it will take for medications and therapy to start working, because different medications take different amounts of time to work. Your provider can also tell you about other treatment options that may help if the first treatment doesn’t work.
Since experts still do not know why schizophrenia occurs, it is not possible to prevent it or reduce the risk of its occurrence.
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Schizophrenia is a condition that varies greatly from person to person. You may struggle with work, relationships, and self-care. But after treatment you will be able to work, take care of yourself and have a fulfilling relationship.
This condition also often affects people with cycles. This means you may go through periods where the condition flares up and symptoms get significantly worse. After that, you may have a time when your symptoms improve but don’t go away completely.
Despite how serious the condition is, treatment allows you to live with it and minimize its impact on your life.
Schizophrenia itself is not a fatal condition. However, its consequences can lead to dangerous or harmful behavior. About a third of people with schizophrenia have symptoms that worsen over time. This may be because your symptoms are not responding to treatment or you are having trouble following treatment plans clearly enough to manage the condition. About 10% of patients with schizophrenia end their lives by suicide.
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Other people respond to treatment. But they still have periods when symptoms return and worsen. They may also have ongoing problems, such as trouble focusing or thinking, due to previous episodes of the condition.
If you have schizophrenia, you should do the following to help take care of yourself and manage your condition:
You should see your healthcare provider as directed. You should also see them if you notice a change in your symptoms, for example if they get worse even though you are taking medication. If you have side effects, you can contact your provider
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