Diagnosis and Treatment Schizophrenia

Introduction: Schizophrenia

A shared belief and definition of schizophrenia is split personality with a Greek translation meaning “split mind”; it is defined as “severe conditions marked by disordered thoughts and communications, inappropriate emotions,” (Maisto & Morris, 2010, p. 415) with a variety of symptoms including a delusional reality, odd behavior, disorganized thinking and speech, diminished emotional expression, social withdraw, and hallucinatory voices and visions. This disorder afflicts a small portion of the world's population resulting it as the most common psychosis.

It is important to understand the differences between psychosis and schizophrenia because psychosis is a generalized term used to describe the psychotic symptoms whereas schizophrenia is a type of psychosis. There are a number of different brain disorders which can mimic psychotic symptoms including strokes, tumors, or infections from illegal drug use. Psychotic symptoms may develop if depression is untreated for an extended period of time. To avoid misdiagnosing a symptom from another disorder for schizophrenia, it is detrimental that doctors be patient (at least 6 months) when making a diagnosis and labeling a person as schizophrenic.

Diagnosis

Prior to a psychiatrist determining a patient has a schizophrenic disorder, a full psychiatric evaluation must be completed. The evaluation includes a physical exam, medical evaluation, mental status evaluation, and appropriate laboratory tests. For an accurate diagnosis, the patient must provide a full history of illnesses. Furthermore, doctors are relying more on the results of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs) which create brain images to compare the results with possible deformities that may be caused by or associated with Schizophrenia.

Types of Schizophrenia

The first type of Schizophrenia is disorganized schizophrenia where a person shows symptoms of an immature disregard for social conventions. For example, a person may defecate or urinate at inappropriate times. This type of person is active yet aimless and often participates in incoherent conversations.

Next, is catatonic schizophrenia where the person has severe motor activity interruption. This type of person will have mental swings from a catatonic state to an extremely active state. They may perform in a robot-like fashion when required to move and, some may even allow a doctor to position their arms and legs into an uncomfortable position where they may maintain for hours.

The third type is Paranoid schizophrenia which the name becomes obvious to its symptoms of delusions, suspiciousness, and paranoia. This person may believe he or she is someone else who may be important like Mother Mary or they may believe that someone or something may be out to get them like