Not being able to think clearly, act normally in social
situations, or tell the difference between what is real and not real are a few
things that make up schizophrenia. There is no specific cause to this mental
disorder many doctors believe that genes may play a role for developing
schizophrenia. Schizophrenia usually beings in men and women's' teen years or
young adulthood, but there is a possibility for childhood-onset schizophrenia
to being after age 5. For a child to be diagnosed with schizophrenia is rare
and it can make it difficult to tell a difference from other developmental
problems the child might have like autism. Hallucinations, lack of emotions,
and delusions are a few symptoms of schizophrenia which develop over the course
of the years; because there is not a medical exam to help diagnose this mental
disorder, psychiatrist should make the diagnosis based on an interview.
Antipsychotic drugs are available for the treatment of schizophrenia and may be the most effective. Living with
this mental disorder seems to be difficult because of the symptoms such as
delusions, because one will not tell apart between real and not real. If being
alone and not being able to tell the difference that could put ones' live in
danger. Also not having a medical test to diagnose schizophrenia, worries one because even though it is rare
children are diagnosed with this mental disorder; and it can be confused with
other developmental problems. The child might be treated with medication that
is not appropriate and the side effects can be very hurtful.
I thought your video was very interesting. The little girl does have a problem bur we do need to be careful in diagnosis the child with schizophrenia. She is being medicated and although there seems to be some improvement who knows what the long effect she will be having from taking the powerful antipsychotics. I agree with you that there is still a lot to be learned from this disorder. Good post.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is such a sad disease! I agree with you completely on the fact that you said that the child might be treated with a medication that is not appropriate for what she is experiencing and thus can cause more long term affects. I hope that more research can be done to really find the root of this problem and hopefully be able to prevent it right from out the womb (if a problem is detected). I do not think that children should be medicated at all! Interesting post!
ReplyDeleteI found your post on childhood-onset schizophrenia very interesting. It is certainly a sensitive topic. I find it devastating that kids as young as 5 years old could suffer from schizophrenia -- that is indeed tragic. The video you included was very sad. You bring up an interesting point: Since there is no medical test for schizophrenia, this mental "illness" could be mistaken for a neurodevelopmental disorder, and treating the child with antipsychotic medications could result in unnecessary and permanent negative side effects such as tardive dyskinesia. Shouldn't there be a medical test since this is a legitimate disorder based under a medical/biological model of mental health?
ReplyDelete