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Back to Subjects - Psychology

Schizophrenia and Its Treatments

Schizophrenia and Its Treatments Schizophrenia and its Medication’s Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder which affects one person of every hundred, both men and women alike (Nichols, 1). It usually develops in a persons late teens or early twenties, though it sometimes (rarely) starts in middle age or even much later into a persons life (Nichols, 1). The earlier this problem starts, the more potential it has to harm the persons personality and their life (Nichols, 2). It makes working, studying, relating to other people, and living an independent life extremely hard to deal with. “Before 1950, most all people with schizophrenia spent most of there lives in mental hospitals away from home” (Nichols, 2). “But things have changed since then, now most all people with the illness live outside of a hospital and live “normal” lives, holding jobs, having friends, and making long lasting relationships” (Driedger, 2). Drug treatment has come a long way in helping people reduce their problem of schizophrenia. But even with the use of drugs, schizophrenia may never be cleared up entirely. No-one knows the cause of schizophrenia. “Approximately one in ten people with schizophrenia have a parent that had the illness as well” (Nichols, 1). “This tell us that this is likely due to heredity or genes and not the upbringing of a child” (Nichols, 1). “Identical twins, for example, if one of the twins has schizophrenia at birth the other child has great odds of having it to, even if the twins are raised miles apart from one another” I have chosen six sources to give me and show me differences in the use of drugs to relief the affects of schizophrenia. I am using two journal articles, one from the British Medical Journal and one from the Journal of Genetic Psychology. Also two web sites, Mentalhealth.com and Schizophrenia.com and two magazine articles. All of these sources have given me their own side of Schizophrenia and the use of treatments to help the ease Schizophrenia has many different symptoms, some more noticeable than others. “The most noticeable symptoms a person is likely to have during an acute episode of schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder or some bizarre behavior” (Long, 1). These symptoms can be reduced by the use of drugs. “Other symptoms more obvious during a less active stage, includes loss of energy, loss of interest toward anything, and the loss of a sense of humor and warmth toward people he/she knows” (Long, 2). Medications, however, don’t work as well to people with these symptoms. And that can make this problem even more difficult to the patient as well as the Drug use is crucial to people with schizophrenia to help maintain sanity. “The drugs are enhancers of the normal biochemical process within the body” (Long, 2) “Use of the drugs can either speed up certain effects and slow down others” (Long, 2). Meaning, they help regulate the speed of a person’s “working” brain. In The British Medical Journal says that the drugs Clorazine and Olanzapine are more effective than traditional antipsychotics and should be offered to patients who have not responded to other antipsychotics drugs. Clorazine helps a schizophrenic have fewer relapses, and also a much greater reduction in symptoms. “Olanzapine is very effective against antipsychotic behavior, much less sedation, and fewer extrapyramidal side effects” (McGrath, 4). The side effects of Clorazine are sedation, hypersalivation, weight gain, and an increased risk of convulsions at higher doses. Olanzapine has few sides as well they are: sedation, weight gain, and dizziness. But both Clorazine and Olanzapine have been found to work extremely well at changing behavior in schizophrenic’s. These drugs have been both used for children with schizophrenia and adults as well. The dosage is very important in reducing severity and the side effects. “The drug should be given at low amounts when it is first given and gradually the doses will increase” (McGrath, 4). Both age and size of problem are also a factor when giving doses of a new drug. Sometime the drug will work as soon as a day, other times it can take up to and past 2 weeks for the The Journal of Genetic Psychology says that “75% of schizophrenics experience auditory hallucinations, therefore drug use is essential to maintain a schizophrenic’s sanity” (Leibman, 1). But also a certain kind of therapy will help there mental illness slow down. The use of antipsychotics medications leaves a part of patients without any benefit of those who benefit from pharmacotherapy during beginning hospitalization. Some treatments that were given were in a therapy sessions, and some having success. “The general aim of these treatments has been to train individuals in symptom self-management through combinations of cognitive restructuring, reality testing, and teaching coping strategies. Although recently, researchers have given promising results, finding that limited generalizability to schizophrenia for two reasons” (Leibman, 5). First many treatment studies were not guided by real models of schizophrenia, but by clinical observations or theories of limited extent. And secondly, the studies that were given were too closely focused on the symptoms themselves, instead of being on the hallucinations and delusions that were happening with the patient. Mentalhealth.com (Dr. Long MD) states that a drug use is the best way to help schizo’s cope with their problem in an easier and faster way. But drug use cannot be effective unless it arrives at a “target zone” within the brain. “Meaning that the dose of drugs has to be high enough to withstand all of the difficulties along the way arrival into the body such as- getting into the bloodstream, getting past a host enzymes ready to destroy the drug, and getting through the blood vessel wall into the brain. The chemical properties needed are different with every person, whether how high/low the dosage needs to be” (Dr. Long, 1). If the medication is indented to affect the brain cells, then a drug that dissolves quickly has to be given in smaller doses than a drug that doesn’t dissolve as fast. “Some patients require higher doses than others, not necessarily because their problem with schizophrenia is worse but, they may have poorer absorbers (how fast the drug get into the bloodstream) or faster metabolizers” (Dr. Long, 1). But certain drugs can sometimes have no effect on a person with schizophrenia. Many tests and evaluations on the patient have to be performed to find out how severe or mild their problem is, so scientists can figure out what drug will work best. Schizophrenia.com states that the use of drugs is the best to deal with the problem of schizophrenia, but it may take a very long time to figure out what drug is best for each person. There are different symptoms that decide if a drug is the right kind or if its not. The two types of symptoms are either, positive or negative. Positive symptoms are symptoms where your feel that your not in control of anything, someone is doing something “behind your back”, and your have absolutely no control over anything. With positive symptoms there are hallucinations, they experience “hearing voices,” seeing someone that isn’t really there, talking with people that aren’t present, and ect. (Chiko, 2). “The voices they hear can sound so real to them that they are convinced that someone is on to them and have been listening to them with secret microphones” (Chiko, 2). They can also be delusional, and think that they are the quarterback for the Notre Dame football team or “God’s personal messenger.” When a person is delusional they may think that the entire world is against them or that they are even from Mars. “Delusions may come out of the blue or may start as an explanation of hallucinations or the sensation of being taken over” (Chiko, 2). A schizophrenic can also have negative symptoms, which affect a persons energy, interest in something, and emotional side of there life (Chico, 2). Negative symptoms can be very hard on the family, because the patient sees them as strangers and will act toward them that way. Macleans (magazine) Jan. 30, 1995 issue, had a article by Mark Nichols. He feels “that radioactively tagged drugs and tissue samples from schizo’s brains- can help give us an answer to how we can solve this mental illness” (Nichols, 2). He adds, “that the drugs zeroed in on a tiny brain protein acts as a receptor for a chemical that transmits messages into the brain called dopamine” (Nichols, 2). He also predicts that the use of drugs are capable of slowing down the disease’s symptoms completely and could emerge within a few decades. Nichols adds that scientists believe that one or more “bad” genes may be the cause for schizophrenia. And because of this new drugs are being developed and tested to see in fact, if this “bad” gene is the problem of this. Sharon Driedger of Macleans magazine says that although most schizophrenics need medication to benefit from any other help, the drugs by are far from sufficient. Along with the drugs, Driedger says, “psychiatric care and social rehabilitation are just as important” (2). She also feels that depending on the severity of their symptoms, the patients may need help in understanding how severe their own illness is, and remembering to taking their drugs regularly is also very important. Behavior techniques, including social skills, are very widely used in the road to relief (Driedger, 2). Driedger feels that schizophrenic patients have to be somewhat “coached,” and corrected as they rehearse behavior. “They should be lectured on how to monitor their thoughts, overcome tendencies to withdraw, paranoia, and learn how to cope with guilt, sadness, and feelings of humiliation” (Driedger, 2). Because schizophrenics think a mile a minute, Driedger feels that in addition to drugs a patients should be taught to evaluate and correct their delusional ideas and hallucinatory understandings. Both Dr. Long (Mentalhealth.com) and John McGrath (British Medical Journal) agree that drug use is absolutely necessary for a patient with schizophrenia to maintain a somewhat “normal” life, holding a job, starting a family, or attending school. Without drugs schizophrenics can live a miserable life, with many patients having constant bizarre outbursts or even committing suicide. Both of these men also agree that a certain kind of schizophrenia calls for a certain type of drug. Many of these drugs will have no affect on a person or it might work immediately after it is given. John McGrath says: “Patients who do not respond to treatment with new antipsychotics, a trial of traditional antipsychotics Sharon Driedger (Maclean’s) and Martin Leibman (Journal of General Psychology) both argue that in addition to drug use patients she also go through and learn coping strategies as well. Learning how to deal with their problem and how it is effecting them. Also living with this problem in real life situations, decision making, planning things, or remembering something. “Patients given integrated psychological therapy showed improvement on tests of attention after 18 months” (Driedger, 2) With these results, it seems that in addition to drugs, therapy is very effective. But with its success there has to be a lot of time put into this. Only after 18 months of this therapy, Driedger noticed a difference with patients. But even after these 18 months “patients still lacked skills needed for independent living” (Driedger, 2) Leibman agrees that his therapies were also extremely time consuming, but did show positive affects. Schizophrenia is a very serious mental illness that we still today do not have a cure for. Although many scientists and doctors are everyday coming up with newer and stronger drugs to help ease the pain. Until we can find the cure, we will continue to prescribe drugs to patients and put them through therapies to help them cope with their everyday problems caused by schizophrenia. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1983