Schizophrenia Being a clinical syndrome schizophrenia has a tremendous effect on an individuals personal life a by affecting his mental well being. Today schizophrenia is a major problem affecting thousands of people in every corner of the world. Schizophrenias lifetime prevalence rate in the U.S for example is 1.3%. Although the yearly prevalence rate in the U.S is smaller it is still high being 0.9%(CJP). Symptoms like hallucinations and dellusions usually begin to show between 16 to 30 yearsof age. Typically it does not show up in people over the age of 45. Teens are difficult to diagnose because the symptoms are similar to those experienced by many normal teens(NIMH,2009)
Through the use of a positive and negative syndrome scale a psychiatrist can check of which symptoms his patient has. The psychiatrist is also able to get an idea of the severity of his patients conditionthrous PANSS. The symptoms are separated into a positive,negative and a general psychological scale.The positive symptoms are delusions,hallucinations,excitement conceptual disorganization,grandiosity,suspiciousness and hostility. The negative symptoms are emotional withdrawl, poor raport,blunted affect,difficulty and stereotyped thinking and lack of spontaneity in conversations. Some general psychological scales are anxiety,guilt feelings, tension and depression(Kay et al)
Individuals with schizophrenia show a reduced ability to perform and distinguish facial expressions. There are two theoretical view points to the reason why this happens to individuals suffering schizophrenia. The more popular of the two is that emotional impairment occurs as an effect of an overall cognitive impairment. Two studies aimed at the cognitive impairment hypothesisfound that the subjects defecits were specific to recognizing facial expressions not individual features like age. In studies done for the emotional impairment hypothesis the subjects were found to be less efficient at recognizing disgust and anger. The subjects were in the same level as the control in identifying happy facial expression. Most studies tended to get results that favored the emotional defecit hypothesis and an inclination toward negative facial expression defecits. The studies aimed at subjects ability to produce facial expression found they were less precise at producing facial expressions. In the studies patients were also found to be more likely to display a negative emotion rather than a positive one (Mandal,399-412).
One cause for schizophrenia might because there are overactive dopamine pathways in the brain. This theory is known as the dopamine hypothesis which might be caused by producing too much dopamine or receptors that are too sensitive.An observation that seems to be in favor of this hypothesis is that individuals with Parkinson’s do not develop schizophrenia. Another is that thoseindividual that have schizophrenia and also get van Enocomo usually improve.in addition monoamine oxydase inhibitors and amphetamines makeing schizophrenia worse points to the dopamine hypothesis. The hypothesis derived from five facts found through research. The first one being that neuroleptics being used by schizophrenic individuals caused them to have Parkinson’s like symptoms.the second fact found was that dopamine-mimetic drugs like LSD,L-Dopa, disulfiram, and amphetamine all made symptoms of schizophrenics worse.The third fact is that neuroleptics accelerate dopamine turnover by effecting nueron’s neural reflex activation. The fourth fact found is that D2 receptors were blocked by neuroleptics. The final finding was that D2 receptors where found in higher percentages in individuals suffering from schizophrenia(Seeman,133-152) Another proposed hypothesis for the occurrence of schizophrenia is known as the neurodevelopmental hypothesis. Through environmental and genetic factors it is believed that prior to mature brain development cause schizophrenia. Through the use of animal models it has