Scizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe, chronic, and disabling brain disorder that has affected many people throughout our history. About 1% of people are at risk of developing schizophrenia. 1% may not seem like much but the actual amount is 2.2 million people in America. There are many symptoms of schizophrenia including: Positive symptoms, hallucinations, delusions, thought disorders, movement disorders, disorganized speech and behavior, negative symptoms which are usually diagnosed as depression , and cognitive symptoms (NIMH Schizophrenia) I will explain each of these later in the paper. Between the ages of 16-30 men and women can start to experience some of these symptoms, but the most experienced are hallucinations and delusions. Although the delusional thoughts and hallucinations of schizophrenia sometimes lead to violent behavior, most people with schizophrenia are neither violent nor a danger to others. The life of a schizophrenic can involve extensive medical treatments, therapy, many struggles, and different effects on their everyday life, but once they find what works for them they are just normal people. Schizophrenia is a word that is less than 100 years old, but the illness was first diagnosed in 1887 by Dr. Emile Kraepelin. He called it "dementia praecox".(History of Schizophrenia) Old written documents suggest that schizophrenia is traced to Pharaonic Egypt back in the second millennium B.C. Also its symptoms were found written throughout the Hindus, Chinese, Greek, and roman histories. Even though it dates that far back there weren't conditions to meet our modern day diagnostics for schizophrenia. Ancient people believed that these mental disorders, physical deformities and other illnesses were caused by a demon or evil possession of the body. So to treat it the proper way in their eyes was by exorcising the demons inside them. They used treatments ranging from harmless, such as exposing the person to certain types of music, to deadly like releasing