Schizophrenia Research Paper

"Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. It is a complex, long-term medical illness, affecting about 1% of Americans"("Schizophrenia." NAMI). Schizophrenia has many causes, symptoms, and treatments and affects a wide variety of people, there are also many types of schizophrenia. While it may be hard to diagnose the cases that are can receive treatment to help with their worst symptoms.
Some symptoms of Schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions, negative symptoms, thought disorders, movement disorders, positive symptoms and cognitive issues. These many issues can affect the patient in many ways, such as with hallucinations,

This phenomenon suggests that the factors influencing SUD risk in schizophrenia may be more numerous and/or complex than those modulating SUD risk in the general population. It is critically important to address this comorbidity because SUD in schizophrenic patients is associated with poorer clinical outcomes and contributes significantly to their morbidity and mortality" (Volkow). While many cases can be contributed by the chemical imbalance in the brain a majority of the cases come from drug use itself. With many hallucinagen type drugs, schizophrenia is a common disorder the people who may take those drugs will face in their life. It is stated that cannibis and tobacco are two of the most highly used drugs by schizophrenic patients. Cannabis has a more predominant effect on patients than tobacco as it shows that some gray matter in the brain that is commonly lost within patients with schizophrenia nearly doubles for patients who have used cannabis within a five year follow up. It's also known that patients who abuse drugs have a higher morbidity rate than regular patients. This morbidity rate is mainly caused by the patient overdosing on other drugs of

These patients usually have relapses and require a large amount of medical attention. The maintenance phase is subcategorized into two smaller phases to help the therapist carry out the treatment. The first phase is the stabilization phase and the second is the relapse prevention phase. In the stabilization phase is the three to six months after the patient has been stable from the acute phase. The relapse prevention, or stable phase, is usually for patients who have continuing symptoms there are many treatments during this phase. While there is a relapse prevention phase, "relapse is common in schizophrenia. During the first five years after initial treatment, more than eighty percent of patients relapse, most of them more than once"(Naber 72). Treatments during the stable phase include antipsychotics, maintenance therapy, and injections of long term acting antipsychotics. The maintenance phase currently does not have a set period of time a patient should be stable yet even at five years after treatment the relapse rate is at sixty percent causing treatment to be