Preview

Describe and Evaluate at Least Two Biological Treatments for Schizophrenia

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1592 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Describe and Evaluate at Least Two Biological Treatments for Schizophrenia
Describe and evaluate at least two biological treatments for schizophrenia
Biological treatments arise from the medical model of abnormal behaviour, which considers mental disorder to be an illness of disease resulting from underlying biological factors. Most people with schizophrenia receive some form of drug therapy.
Drug therapy is the most common treatment, using antipsychotic drugs. Antipsychotic drugs aims to help patient function as well as possible and increasing patient’s feelings of well being.
Researchers believe that dopamine plays an important part in schizophrenia. The goal of conventional antipsychotic drug therapy is to reduce the amount of dopamine, or the amount of dopamine receptor sites. They are dopamine antagonists in that they bind dopamine receptors and blocking their action.

Conventional drugs can reduce acute, positive symptoms ed. hallucinations. They produce the maximum benefits within the first six months of use.
Atypical antipsychotic drugs also target negative symptoms but there is some evidence that they reduce negative symptoms too. They also act on the dopamine system but are also thought to block serotonin receptors.

One way to test the effectiveness of conventional drugs is to compare the relapse rate of placebo. Davis use meta-analysis and found relapse occurred in 55% of p[patients whose drugs were replaced by placebo’s compared with a 19% relapse rate for those who stayed on antipsychotics. Davis did find that environment also play a role in relapse rate of treatment. Relapse rate of patient who stayed in a hostility and criticism family on medication were 53% compared to 92% for those under the placebo condition, whereas those living in supportive home environments there was no significant difference between the medication and placebo group.

However, ross and read argued that Davis studies are not fair comparison of treatment versus non- treatment because under the placebo condition the patient is in a drug

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    However the antipsychotic drugs had side effects that were similar to the ones in Parkinson’s disease, these side effects were shown in John Nash, after he started his anti-psychotics. The role of the antipsychotic drugs is to block the dopamine…

    • 214 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Background: We aimed to explore relations between symptomatic remission and functionality evaluation in schizophrenia patients treated with paliperidone extended-release (ER), as seen in a normal day-to-day practice, using flexible dosing regimens of paliperidone ER. We explored symptomatic remission rate in patients treated with flexibly dosed paliperidone ER by 8 items of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and change of Personal and Social Performance (PSP) scale. Method: This was a 12-week multicenter, open-label, prospective clinical study conducted in in-patient and outpatient populations. Flexible dosing in the range 3-12 mg/day was used throughout the study. All subjects attended clinic visits on weeks 0, 4, 8, and 12 as usual clinical practice for the 12-week observation period. Data were summarized with respect to demographic and baseline characteristics, efficacy measurement with PANSS scale, PSP, and social functioning score, and safety observations. Descriptive statistics were performed to identify the retention rate at each visit as well as the symptomatic remission rate. Summary statistics of average doses the subjects received were based on all subjects participating in the study. Results: A total of 480 patients were enrolled. Among them, 426 patients (88.8%) had evaluation at week 4 and 350 (72.9%) completed the 12-week evaluation. Patients with at least moderate severity of schizophrenia were evaluated as “mild” or better on PANSS scale by all 8 items after 12 weeks of treatment with paliperidone ER. There was significant…

    • 5271 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The dopamine hypothesis can be supported by evidence. Amphetamines increase the amount of dopamine and large doses of amphetamine given to people with no history of psychological disorder often produce behaviour which is very similar to paranoid schizophrenia (Sz) whereas small doses given to…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psych 320

    • 539 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Medications, specifically selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Two in particular-paroxetine (Paxil) and sertaline (Zoloft)-have been approved by the Food and Drug…

    • 539 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    3.Elaine Zablocki (2004).” Atypical antipsychotic drugs cut negative symptoms, side effects: the second generation of treatment for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders offers fewer side effects, but costs are much higher”. Managed Healthcare Executive. 14.3 p48.…

    • 95 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many explanations for schizophrenia, but the biological explanations have received the most research support, according to Comer 2003. To explain schizophrenia from biological perspective, we would discuss the disorder from the direction of genetics, biochemistry and brain structures.…

    • 846 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    1.3 Anti psychotic drugs reduce agitation, aggression and hallucinations, challenging and disruptive behaviour. The individual should be able to participate in daily living tasks and interact more socially. They should be able to make more decisions for themselves.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psychodynamic Essay

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages

    drugs that fall under the class known as antipsychotics, and help in treatments with a person who…

    • 1165 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Medication is used to treat symptoms as they arise or to treat other disorders occurring simultaneously, including alcoholism, drug abuse, mood or anxiety disorders. Antipsychotic medication may be prescribed if the person’s thinking is distorted. These include Zyprexa and Risperdal among others. At times mood stabilizers will be prescribed, such as Lithium, Depakote, or Topamax. Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Celexa are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) used as antidepressants and seem to be most effective when treating people with borderline personality disorder. (Biskin et al.,…

    • 1547 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This paper will discuss the severe and irreversible side effects of antipsychotics along with the neurotransmitters involved. The paper will then go into detail of the challenges counselors face when working with individuals with psychosis. In the end, the paper will discuss a case study of John, who is schizophrenic and needs antipsychotics to function in life.…

    • 1104 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    If a patient with schizophrenia is given a dopamine treatment that blocks the receptors, then it will cause less schizophrenic symptoms within the patient.…

    • 93 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Psychotropic Effect

    • 871 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Psychotropic drugs can be effective for treating the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Positive symptoms include delusions, disordered thoughts and speech, and tactile, auditory, visual, olfactory and gustatory hallucinations, typically regarded as manifestations of psychosis. Psychotropic medications treat these symptoms by changing the amounts of dopamine, serotonin, noradrenaline and acetylcholine in the brain to a more normal level. The decrease in dopamine reduces the hallucinations, a decrease in noradrenaline and acetylcholine reduce delusions, and the disordered thoughts and speech. All of these symptom reductions help the patient reach a point where they can successfully undergo psychotherapy.…

    • 871 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Schizophrenia

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages

    There are many different explanations for schizophrenia and the biological one has a major influence on the explanation. There are two different approaches; genetics and the dopamine hypothesis.…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What Is Schizophrenia?

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Antipsychotics are the most popular medicine to help Schizophrenia. They are taken every day by the suffer to help he/she control their symptoms by affecting the brain neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin (“Schizophrenia”). A second treatment option is Psychosocial. It is mostly to be used after the patients have found a medication that works for them and learns coping skills for everyday life (“Schizophrenia”). The last popular treatment for Schizophrenia is Coordinated Special Care. This treatment involves medication, psychosocial therapies, case management, family involvement, education and employment services. It's aimed to reduce symptoms and improve the quality of life for sufferers…

    • 629 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psychological disorder will eventually affect our future generations negatively in terms of their mental health as well as their physical health if things get out of control if the right and specific treatments have not been developed. The same case with schizophrenia. According to the research, the ineffectiveness of psychotherapy in treating schizophrenia cause the lack of discouragement of the experts to make innovation and further research in this area. Heinrichs (1986) states that the advantages of psychotherapy on treating schizophrenia has yet to be proved and tested. It is now becoming a challenge for the experts to use psychotherapy for maximum benefits for curing…

    • 1086 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays