To be diagnosed with schizophrenia, a person must show signs of at least two of these symptoms for a month or longer. One of the symptoms a person has must be a positive symptom like hallucinations, delusions, or jumbled speech and thought. In a study done by Andreasen and Flaum, eighty-one percent of the people with schizophrenia had delusions. Fifty-eight percent had hallucinations, and only twenty-two percent had disorganized thoughts. For negative characteristics, eighty-five percent experienced apathy. Sixty percent of the people experienced the flat affect, and only thirty percent had alogia.
Culture can vary schizophrenia greatly. Delusions, for example, can have completely different themes depending on where the person lives. In Nigeria and Ghana, many delusions were based on being an angel or a prophet because this is a major part of their culture. Over time, the major theme for that …show more content…
Genetic factors, paternal age, immune system, abnormal brain structures and chemistry, and psychological factors can all be causes of schizophrenia. Paternal age is a factor because as the male ages, his chances of having genetic mutations in his offspring increase. Dolores Malaspina did a study in 2001 and found that man between the age of forty-five and forty-nine has twice as much of a chance to have children with schizophrenia than a man that is twenty-five or younger. A man that is over fifty triples his chance of having children with schizophrenia. Overall, about a quarter of the cases of schizophrenia studied by Malaspina were accredited to paternal age. There is a theory that an influenza virus during prenatal development or soon after birth. Some scientists are not exactly sure why this is, but this theory is still being studied. Brain structure plays a big part in schizophrenia. Though scientists are not exactly sure why, swollen ventricles, or fluid-filled cavities in the brain, are associated with schizophrenia. Most patients also have a loss in the gray matter of their brain which increases their symptoms and lowers their thinking skills. A very contradictory theory is that dopamine in the brain increases a person's schizophrenic symptoms. There is both evidence for and against this theory. Family lifestyles can induce schizophrenia. A child growing up under harsh or guilt-inducing parenting can suffer from …show more content…
That is about one out of every one hundred Americans or 2.5 million Americans. Sadly, there is no cure for this complex mental disorder, but there are treatments and medications that can help relieve a person of some of their sufferings. Some people are even able to live a normal life with the right treatments. Treatments include things like individual or family therapy and social skills training. Medications that can help schizophrenic patients are antipsychotics like chlorpromazine and asenapine. The more doctors and psychiatrists study this intricate disorder and all its causes and influences, the more likely people are to be able to live a more normal life with this terrible mental disorder in the