al., analyzed homicidal behaviors in schizophrenic individuals, particularly those with paranoid schizophrenia. The potential risks and necessary preventative measures were examined. The study also measured the effectiveness of clozapine in preventing violent behaviors. Articles in both international and national databases were reviewed, covering a span of 31 years from 1979 to 2010. The study seemed to be very accurate since it included both males and females from all demographics, with schizophrenia and without.
Schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a breakdown of thought processes and by a deficit of typical emotional responses. In addition to this, some signs of schizophrenia are also associated with illnesses such as depression for example, hallucinations and delusions. Schizophrenia is also defined as a psychotic disorder with, impairments in reality, disturbances of perception and thought experienced as hallucinations, delusions, hearing voices, seeing things that are not there, and paranoia. Its onset usually starts in a person’s late teens to early twenties, and it affects about one percent of the global population. Its causes are unknown but experts are learning more every day.
There appears to be a tendency for schizophrenia to run in families. This suggests that genes play a role. Gottesman found that schizophrenia is more common among biological relatives of a person with schizophrenia and also that the closer the degree of genetic relatedness, the greater the risk. Gottesman conducted family studies and showed that when both parent are schizophrenic the children have a 46% concordance rate, however, if only one parent had it, it dropped to 16% and dropped to a further 1% when the sibling of the child had schizophrenia. This suggests that a genetic factor is involved.
PARANOID SCHIZOPHRENIA Paranoid Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness in which reality is distorted, also known as psychosis; people with Paranoid Schizophrenia cannot tell what is real from what is imagined. Paranoid Schizophrenia is one of the most common diagnosed forms of Schizophrenia; it only affects 1% of the general population, about 2.2 million people. People diagnosed with schizophrenia make up about half of all patients in psychiatric hospitals and may occupy as many as one quarter of the world's hospital beds. People with schizophrenia have problems remembering, paying attention, and communication .Some researchers believe Paranoid Schizophrenia develops as a young child, but major symptoms do not affect the mind fully until
Risk assessments are also designed to manage and identify areas of concern, either to the patient or health professional’s involved in the care of the patient. Areas of risk assessment may include suicide or self harm, absconding, aggression or violence, substance use, vulnerabilities and neglect, non adherence or compliance. These areas of assessment may include past risk and current risk factors (Edward, Munro, Robins & Welch, 2011). Risk assessment of the patient is important but also risk towards others. Patients with paranoid schizophrenia are more opportunistic in behaving aggressively or violently towards co-patients and/or staff, which is why implementation of such assessment tools have been put in place (Langan, 2008).
Essay Plan Biological Explanations of Schizophrenia 1. Describe in some detail the genetic factors- family studies- Gottesman found that schizophrenia is more common among biological relatives of a person with schizophrenia and also that the closer the degree of genetic relatedness, the greater the risk. For instance, children with 2 schizophrenic parents have a concordance rate of 46%, children of one schizophrenic parent 13% and siblings 9%. Although this could be due to common rearing patterns or other factors not relating to heredity. Twin studies- Joseph calculated concordance rates of 40.4% for MZ twins and 7.4% for DZ twins.
The social dynamics of school, puberty, life at home, and many other factors affect the psyche of teens during this time in their life both positively and negatively. Some of these transitions cause emotional instability in the lives of adolescents, spiraling some into depression. When dealing with major depression, antidepressants are often used to help the adolescent cope by creating a feeling of balance. There is debate on adolescents using antidepressants. Stephen Barlas reports in Psychiatric Times that antidepressants are found to cause “possible suicidal ideation and suicide attempts as side effects” (2006).
Schizophrenia is a mental illness that most often requires multiple therapies that help a person manage their mental disease. For the larger portion of individuals with schizophrenia a combination of psychotropic medication and a psychosocial therapy is most successful (Townsend, 2008). Schizophrenia has been reviewed and presented in steps for nursing to help diagnose people. The cause of the mental disease remains a puzzle to psychiatrists, but identifying the type and care needed for people is clear. Schizophrenia can be managed, but it requires the assistance of medication and possibly other therapies.
Individual Programmatic Assessment: Disorder Paper Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects 2.4 million American adults over the age of 18. Although it affects men and women with equal frequency, schizophrenia most often appears in men in their late teens or early twenties, while it appears in women in their late twenties or early thirties (National Alliance on Mental Illness,2012). It is a chronic, brain disabling illness. Many people diagnosed with schizophrenia have difficulty deciphering fantasy from fiction. They sometimes cannot tell what is real and what is not.
Being out of home can have many implications to a persons health. As they are vulnerable and often may not have the resources to provide food or shelter for themselves they are leaving themselves open to a lot of preventable infections and diseases, be it a common flu or HIV. (http://www.focusireland.ie/files/docs/effects%20-%20link.pdf) This high level of vulnerability could result in early onset of death and high mortality rates. Crisis believe that “Homeless people die younger. The average age of death of those recorded as homeless on corners varies between 42 and 53 years.” (Crisis,