Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia has been nicknamed the “cancer” of mental illness because of its severity, varying cases, and mysterious origins. The name schizophrenia literally means “split mind” implying symptoms of split personalities or disturbances in thought, thinking, attention, language, emotion, and relationships. Unlike other mental illnesses, schizophrenia is not two personalities within a person but one personality that is, plainly put, abnormal. People with schizophrenia have difficulty having a job; in fact a large majority of the American homeless would be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is believed that in the world population, .4-.7 percent have schizophrenia, so it is fairly common. Half of medical patients in mental institutions are schizophrenics. Most of these people were stricken with this illness in their mid to late twenties (typically later in women), but schizophrenia has been known to emerge in those as old as 45.

The symptoms themselves are categorized as either delusions, hallucinations, and cluttered speech. Delusions are withheld, enduring beliefs and perceptions of a world with no reality. These delusions are revealed by false persecutions of the patient. They convince themselves that something has happened, on a whim with no explanation, and hold true to that belief. This could be anything from believing that Russian spies are in hot pursuit as seen in the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, to something more fanatical such as the claim to the known cure for cancer.  Also taken from “A Beautiful Mind”, John Nash’s case of seeing living hallucinations is a very rare case. Most schizophrenics will hear voices, usually ridiculing or urging an action. If you experience inner speech, such as the way most people think, then you’re completely normal. But it is said that this interpretation of inner speech listening is where schizophrenics believe that their inner voice is actually an outside source. Disorganized speech is the final, most common symptom of schizophrenia. Responses to questions and explanations are indecipherable—the sentences don’t make sense, jokingly referred to as “word salad”.

Family involvement doesn’t necessarily cause schizophrenia but the actions of those members certainly expose the symptoms of the disorder. Caucasian American cultures are typically more critical and strive to make those within the household independent. However, in African and Mexican American homes, the environment is much more community based, where the family is the most important unit and needs are met by every individual, honesty and care is supported for those with schizophrenia by living styles.

In the brain, ventricles are the four fluid-filled cushions between brain hemispheres. In schizophrenics, one or more of these are enlarged and ill-proportioned. The decreased size of the temporal lobes, the increase space between the ridges in the brain, over activation of the amygdale and hippocampus are also other brain abnormalities that contribute to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia can be dealt with indirectly blocking the actions of dopamine receptors within cell neurons, dopamine is the fuel for the schizophrenic mind.

Heritability of schizophrenia is still difficult to determined, but the correlation between monozygotic twins with one sibling already diagnosed as a schizophrenic as well as the probability that a child born from two schizophrenic parents will also have it hovers below 50%.