According to main medical and psychological dictionaries, schizophrenia is said to be a psychiatric diagnosis describing a neuropsychiatric or mental disorder. Schizophrenia could be recognized by the presence of certain abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. In general, a person suffering from schizophrenia expresses paranoid and bizarre delusions, disorganized speech and thinking with certain dysfunction. Some symptoms may be manifested in the adulthood.
How will your doctor recognize that you suffer from the illness? Actually, this diagnosis is the expression of the patient’s self-reported experiences and the behaviour he or she represents. Unfortunately, there are no any laboratory tests for such an illness to rely on.
Still, a person experiencing schizophrenia may reveal delusions, unusual thinking and speech. Sometimes it could be expressed by loss of train of thought and subject flow. In other cases word salad (in severe cases) is believed to be a sign of schizophrenia. In order to define whether we deal with an illness or not such symptoms are to remain for a period of one month or even more. People developing schizophrenia are able to experience the symptoms of social withdrawal, irritability or dysphoria in the prodromal period.
There are certain types of schizophrenia such as paranoid type, disorganized type, catatonic, undifferentiated type and residential type. All of them reveal various signs and symptoms. The list of main causes includes genetic, prenatal, social and drug abuse.
Is schizophrenia possible to be cured? Definitely, the answer is “yes”. The list of treatments includes antipsychotic medications. Medicines of this type are used mostly to reduce the positive symptoms of psychosis. Usually, 7-14 days are quite enough to perform the main effect. It should be mentioned that such drugs are good at the initial stage.