y stand or sit in strangepositions. Some people become almost motionless. Others move around constantly. Theseverity of symptoms will vary from one person to another. The symptoms also tend toworsen and improve. When the symptoms are improved, the person may appear tobehave relatively normally, but usually there will be repeated episodes of the illness thatwill cause symptoms to reappear. Schizophrenia is a complex and puzzling illness. Even the experts are not sureexactly what causes it. Some doctors think that the brain may not be able to processinformation correctly. People without schizophrenia usually can filter out unneededinformation: for example, the sound of a train whistle in the background or a dog barkingnext door. People with schizophrenia, however, cannot always filter out this extrainformation. One possible cause of schizophrenia may be heredity, or genetics. Expertsthink that some people inherit a tendency to schizophrenia. In fact, the disorder tends torun in families, but only among blood relatives. People who have family members withschizophrenia may be more likely to get the disease themselves. If both biologic parentshave schizophrenia, there is nearly a 40% chance that their child will get it, too. Thishappens even if the child is adopted and raised by mentally healthy adults. In people whohave an identical twin with schizophrenia, the chance of schizophrenia developing isalmost 50%. In contrast, children whose biological parents are mentally healthy - even iftheir adoptive parents have schizophrenia - have about a 1% chance of getting the disease. That is about the same risk as for the general population of the United States. Some researchers believe that events in a persons environment triggerschizophrenia. Some studies have shown that influenza infection or improper nutritionduring pregnancy and complications during birth may increase the risk that the baby willdevelop schizophren...
