treatment and diagnosing schizophrenia

1. Schizophrenia
Emily Bray

2. Gray Matter Loss in Brain Due to
Psychotic Episodes /
Schizophrenia, Not From
Medications
• Evidence of 5-7% shrinkage in the
brains of those with Sz
• Particularly in the gray matter -
memory storage and
retrieval memory storage and
retrieval
• Some say about 1% of the shrinking
may be due to medication
• New evidence (Yale Uni) – may be
due to psychotic episodes
• Results show - brain changes are
part of the natural course of the
disorder rather than being a
consequence of treatment
• Neuroinflammation may be a
process that causes people to go
from the at-risk state into psychosis.

3. Celebrity
Schizophrenia
• Said to have developed though – drug use,
stress and pressure of his career
• Symptoms – odd thoughts, genetic
predisposition, psychosis in his early 20’s
( delusions and visions), bizarre actions,
paranoia, disorganized thinking,
catatonia and social withdrawal and
highly creative (elevated risk)
• Childhood – stressful due to death of his
father when he was young
• Early career – very stressful and using a
wide variety of drugs mainly cannabis and
LSD, he then developed diabetes a
common on set from the disease

4. Treatment for schizophrenia
Psychological
 Psychological treatment can help people with
schizophrenia cope with the symptoms of
hallucinations or delusions better. They can also help
treat some of the negative symptoms of
schizophrenia, such as apathy or a lack of enjoyment.
 Psychological treatments for schizophrenia work best
when they are combined with antipsychotic
medication. Common psychological treatments
include:
 Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) -identify
the thinking patterns that are causing you to have unwanted
feelings and behaviour, and learn to replace this thinking with
more realistic and useful thoughts.
 Family therapy - series of informal meetings over
a period of around six months. Meetings may include:
 discussing information about schizophrenia. Exploring
ways of supporting somebody with schizophrenia.
Deciding how to solve practical problems that can be
caused by the symptoms of schizophrenia
 Arts therapy - Arts therapies are designed to promote
creative expression. Working with an arts therapist in a small group
or individually can allow you to express your experiences with
schizophrenia
Physiological
 Antipsychotics are usually recommended as the initial
treatment for the symptoms of an acute schizophrenic
episode. They work by blocking the effect of the
chemical dopamine on the brain.
 Antipsychotics can usually reduce feelings of anxiety or
aggression within a few hours of use, but may take
several days or weeks to reduce other symptoms, such
as hallucinations or delusional thoughts.
 There are two main types of antipsychotics: Typical
antipsychotics – the first generation of
antipsychotics developed during the 1950s and Atypical
antipsychotics – newer-generation
antipsychotics developed in the 1990s
 However they both come with side effects including :
shaking, blurred vision, dry mouth, trembling and
muscle spasms etc.

5. Difficulties in diagnosing schizophrenia
 Many individuals who are diagnosed do not believe they have the disease
 It is a very subjective matter and to doctors may view the patients very
differently
 There is no one single physical or lab test that is able on its own to accurately
diagnosis schizophrenia
 A person with suggested schizophrenia will act very differently day to day due
to many of the symptoms such as disordered thinking so you cant get a
reliable testing
 The first signs of its manifestation may only be a change of friends, a drop in
grades or irritability and not even appear to be "typical" signs of psychosis
 Symptoms of schizophrenia also resemble those of other mental and physical
health problems, such as bipolar disorder and brain tumours