Schizophrenia Essay

Schizophrenia affects approximately 24 million or 1 in 300 people (0.32%) worldwide.

This rate is 1 in 222 people (0.45%) among adults (2). You are probably wondering what schizophrenia is or how it affects people, I am going to address that. I chose this topic because I am very interested in learning more about schizophrenia and the effects of it.

Before researching my topic, I knew that schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects how people think, feel, and behave. I know that it can make the person see things differently or see things that are not there. I also know that it can make the person hear things or people that aren't there.

What I hope to learn from my research is how schizophrenia can be diagnosed, what age can you

Since Schizophrenia is something not many people know much about I have decided to research it.

First of all, what is schizophrenia? “Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder that influences early brain development. It is expressed as a combination of psychotic symptoms, and motivational and cognitive dysfunctions.” It affects you in many ways, such as causing hallucinations, delusions, and disorganization. “Schizophrenia is a serious mental disorder in which people interpret reality abnormally… causes behavior that impairs daily functioning, and can be disabling.” So the people that suffer from schizophrenia do not see the world the way we

2

see it, they see most things differently due to hallucinations and delusions. Overall,

Schizophrenia is a disorder that can make you experience reality differently, and can make you switch from reality to your distorted perception of reality.

Another question I had was the diagnosis of schizophrenia, how, when, and why do you get diagnosed with schizophrenia? To get diagnosed there is no one test you take, the condition is usually diagnosed after an assessment by a specialist in mental health. “Your pediatrician may

Then you would see a psychiatrist, you would get diagnosed there. “Schizophrenia tends to show up earlier in males than females. For males, it’s typically between ages 18 and 25 and for females, between ages 25 and 35.” Schizophrenia is usually diagnosed anywhere between the late teen years and the early

30s. When teens are diagnosed before they’re 18, it’s called early-onset schizophrenia. Kids younger than 13 can develop schizophrenia too, known as childhood-onset schizophrenia, but this is extremely rare. If you don't get diagnosed schizophrenia can result in severe problems that affect every area of life. Complications that schizophrenia may cause include, suicide, suicide attempts, thoughts of suicide, anxiety disorders and OCD.

Additionally, I wanted to learn what episodes look like and what triggers them. A schizophrenic episode, the person might lose touch with reality and have delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, and psychotic behaviors. A schizophrenic episode can last days, weeks, and sometimes even months. Some people might only have one or two episodes, while some

3

people have episodes that come and go. The episodes are caused by differences in