Further Reading &Amp References: Patient – Trusted Medical Information And Support

Negative symptoms can make lots of people neglect themselves.

For families and carers, the negative symptoms are often the most difficult to deal with.

They may not care to do anything and appear to be wrapped up in their own thoughts. Negative symptoms can also lead to difficulty with education, that can contribute to difficulties with employment. Families may only realise with hindsight that the behaviour of a relative was gradually changing. Have you heard of something like this before? The diagnosis may not be clear at first. With all that said… Most of the symptoms that occur in schizophrenia also occur in other mental health conditions just like depression, mania, dissociative identity disorder or after taking some street drugs. Have you heard of something like that before? In contrast, lots of people mainly have negative symptoms and that’s classed as simple schizophrenia. Different forms of schizophrenia occur according to the main symptoms that develop. People with paranoid schizophrenia mainly have positive symptoms which include delusions that people are making an attempt to harm them. Known not all symptoms are present in all cases. Essentially, family and friends may recognise that the person has a mental health problem.

Sometimes symptoms develop quickly over a few weeks or so.

It is thought that the balance of certain brain chemicals is altered.

The exact cause ain’t known. Neurotransmitters are essential in order to pass messages between brain cells. Now look, an altered balance of these may cause the symptoms. This is the case. Inherited factors are thought to be important. Remember, mostly there’re various theories as to what these close family member of someone with schizophrenia has a 1 in 10 also chance developing the condition. Anyways, that’s 10 times the normal chance. Blood and urine tests can be done to rule out physical causes of the symptoms or drug/alcohol use. It’s an interesting fact that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends that the patient’s social circumstances be assessed and their family involved as long as possible. Treatment and care are usually based in the community rather than at hospitals. Ok, and now one of the most important parts. People need to be admitted to hospital for a short time. Essentially, hospital admission may also be needed for quite a while at other times if symptoms become severe.

Treatment can be started quickly since This is sometimes done when the condition is first diagnosed.

Sometimes when persuasion fails, some individuals are admitted to hospital for treatment against their will by use of the Mental Health Act.

People with schizophrenia often do not realise or accept that they are ill. Nonetheless, this means that doctors and social workers can force a person to go to hospital. Antipsychotic medicines tend to work best to ease positive symptoms and tend not to work so well to ease negative symptoms. Eventually, antipsychotic medication is used to relieve the symptoms. Antipsychotic medication is usually taken on a ‘longterm’ basis. Therefore the main medicines used to treat schizophrenia are called antipsychotics. There’re various antipsychotic medicines and different ones should be used in different circumstances.

They work by altering the balance of some brain chemicals. Antipsychotic medicines are also used to prevent recurring episodes of symptoms. One should be better for an individual than another. In most cases, the specialist will start you on either risperidone or olanzapine. There’re I’d say in case you only have one symptoms episode that clears completely with treatment, one option is to try coming off medication after 1 2 years. Symptoms may take ’24’ weeks to ease after starting medication and it can take a few weeks for full improvement. Consequently, even when symptoms ease, antipsychotic medication is normally continued longterm. And therefore the following are the main ‘side effects’ that sometimes occur. Movement disorders develop in particularly, the risk of weight gain.

Atypicals do, however, have their own risks.

Atypical antipsychotic medicines are thought to be less likely than typical antipsychotic medicines to cause movement disorder sideeffects.

Reduced incidence of movement disorder is the main reason why an atypical antipsychotic medicine is often used first line. They are used in and identical talking treatments are not alternatives to medicines. NICE recommends up to 16 CBT sessions. Contact details of the head offices of the main support organisations are listed in links after this leaflet. Often the key worker plays a vital role. So that’s very important. Did you hear of something like that before? Families, friends and local support groups can also be major sources of help. Now regarding the aforementioned fact… I know it’s quite common for people with schizophrenia not to look after themselves so well. Weight gain should be an aftereffects of antipsychotic medicines. Such things as smoking, lack of exercise, obesity and an unhealthy diet are more common than average in people with schizophrenia. On top of this, as with everyone else in the population, people with schizophrenia are encouraged to adopt a healthy lifestyle.