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Jacobie Geer

Ms. Cole

English 4

28 February 2019

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness that can make anyone see delusions and

hallucinations. The word schizophrenia comes from Greece and it basically means ‘split mind’.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that people with schizophrenia have different personalities, they

see the world differently from others. Their mind sees things that others can’t. Schizophrenia got

its name from by a psychiatrist named Eugen Bleuler in 1908 (Piotrowski and Tischauser). He

first named the disease when he wrote a paper on dementia. He decided to study what was it like

for a person who any type of illness in the brain.

There are multiple ways that schizophrenia can develop over time. It could develop due

to a birth defect. It could develop years after any severe trauma that anyone has gone through.

Schizophrenia can be genetic, as well, coming from parents and grandparents. Studies, although,

doesn’t say the real reason why schizophrenia forms and how it makes its way into the brain.

There is still research going on and scientists are always one step closer to finding the real reason

why it’s the way it is.

There are many symptoms of knowing that schizophrenia is present. The main symptom

is severe depression. Psychotic systems can break reality, have hallucinations and delusions

(Piotrowski and Tischauser 2). People have considered those symptoms positive because they’re

visible to the eye. Negative symptoms are symptoms that people can’t physically see. Some
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examples of those symptoms are the lack of socializing, lack of emotion or feeling, blank staring,

lack of facial expressions, etc (Piotrowski and Tischauser 3). The list goes on. Some of these

symptoms can’t be seen with the human eye but it’s noticeable.

Different age groups each have a chance to develop schizophrenia. People usually show

any signs of schizophrenia is when they’re in their early childhood stage to the late teens.

There’s not a high chance for people who are older in age. It’s completely rare for them. At times

it’s the males who show any signs of schizophrenia before women. Schizophrenia may not show

up in women during their late twenties or during the last part of their thirties. People who

develop the illness at a later age may also experience the same symptoms as teens.

There are different types of treatment for a schizophrenic. They usually go to any type

of psychotherapy to help them get over the fear of problems in social situations. Some

schizophrenic people usually go to rehab as well, which can help themselves in a way to make

them more active in the outside world, their home, and the people around them. Some of them

may have to take antipsychotic drugs, chlorpromazine and haloperidol, to get rid of the

hallucinations and delusions (Funk & Wagnalls). Between the 1950s and the early 1990s, many

drugs have been developed to help schizophrenic people deal with the negative and positive

symptoms of mental illness, known as olanzapine, risperidone, and quetiapine (Funk & Wagnalls

2). Although schizophrenics don’t like taking those types of medications because of the side

effects involving spasming of the muscles, moving back and forth frequently, and odd facial

expressions.

Schizophrenia is a misunderstood mental illness. People need to know that the illness is

not something others can control. People need to know more about schizophrenia before they

start judging anyone who has it.

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Work Cited

Piotrowski, Nancy A., Ph.D., Tischauser, Leslie V., Ph.D. “ Schizophrenia.” Magill’s

Medical Guide (Online Edition), 2017. 4p.

“Schizophrenia.” World Book, Inc., Chicago. Funk & Wagnalls New World

Encyclopedia. 2018, 1p.

Kim JS. Park CM. “The association between season of birth, age at onset, and clozapine

use in schizophrenia.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica [Acta Psychiatr Scand] 2017 Nov; Vol.

136 (5), pp. 445-454. Date of Electronic Publication: 2017 Jul 25.