Schizophrenia - A Dreaded Mental Disease

Posted On: November 01, 2011 02:55 pm

Schizophrenia is a complex mental disorder that makes it difficult to:
•    Tell the difference between real and unreal experiences
•    Think logically
•    Have normal emotional responses,
•    Behave normally in social situations
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Schizophrenia is a complex illness. Mental health experts are not sure what causes it. However, genetic factors appear to play a role.
•    Certain environmental events may trigger schizophrenia in people who are genetically at risk for it.
•    You are more likely to develop schizophrenia if you have a family member with the disease.
Schizophrenia affects both men and women equally. It usually begins in the teen years or young adulthood, but may begin later in life. It tends to begin later in women, and is more mild.
Childhood-onset schizophrenia begins after age 5. Childhood schizophrenia is rare and can be difficult to tell apart from other developmental disorders of childhood, such as autism.
Symptoms
Schizophrenia symptoms usually develop slowly over months or years. Sometimes you may have many symptoms, and at other times you may only have a few.
People with any type of schizophrenia may have difficulty keeping friends and working. They may also have problems with anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts or behaviors.
At first, you may have the following symptoms:
•    Irritable or tense feeling
•    Difficulty sleeping
•    Difficulty concentrating
As the illness continues, problems with thinking, emotions and behavior develop, including:
•    Lack of emotion (flat affect)
•    Strongly held beliefs that are not based in reality (delusions)
•    Hearing or seeing things that are not there (hallucinations)
•    Problems paying attention
•    Thoughts "jump" between unrelated topics ( “loose associations”)
•    Bizarre behaviors
•    Social isolation
Famous People with Schizophrenia

Eduard Einstein - (28 July 1910 - 25 October 1965) Eduard Einstein was extremely intelligent and always surpassed other students in school. Throughout his youth Eduard wanted to be a psychoanalyst but was afflicted with schizophrenia by the age of 20 which leaded him to be institutionalized several times. He died in an asylum at age 55 and his family lineage has been used to raise public awareness of schizophrenia.

John Nash - (born June 13, 1928) John Nash is an American mathematician working in differential geometry, game theory and partial differential equations. A hollywood movie has been made representing Nash, the movie itself name "A beautiful Mind" which was later nominated  for 8 Oscars. The movie was based on his mathematical genius and his struggle with Schizophrenia. Nash would conduct scientific experiments in his room at a young age and would prefer to work alone. He was often rejected by his classmates and would most of the time laugh it off with practical jokes and intellectual superiority. He would see everyone elses daily activities as a distraction to his scientific work. Nash was awarded the John von Neumann Theory Prize for his invention of non-cooperative equilibria, now called Nash equilibria. Between 1945 and 1996 he had published a total of 23 scientific studies.

Source: disabled-world.com