Schizophrenia: Simple Insanity?

Schizophrenia, the mental illness we have all heard of and the one we all fear. It seems so embedded in our minds when we think of mental illness, yet it has not always been around. Before the 18oo's you were sane or you were not, a simple and easy way to assess someone and quite a good explanation as to why bullying happens. It is so embedded in our culture to judge those who are different and to persecute them (as we have done for centuries). We all know about mental illness, yet what many of us don’t know is what it means to be mentally ill.

Schizophrenia is an illness which has only recently started its evolutionary process, its roots are embedded at the beginning of psychiatry. When Kraepelin (a Victorian psychiatrist) conducted the first longitudinal study into insanity defining three types of Insanity:

• Catatonia
• Hebephrenia
• Dementia Paranoides

All fell under Kraepelin's umbrella of insanity and were so titled as sub-categories of what he called Dementia Praecox. This was the point where insanity became specific, not just insanity. Although with such a fine discovery made there were disadvantages. Patients had a name, a type of illness and they had an expected age of onset, yet the outlook was bleak - there was no cure and Kraepelin suggested that the sufferer would experience severe cognitive decline to a point of cognitive enfeeblement.

The next advance was then not made until in the 1920's Dementia Praecox was renamed as 'Schizophrenias' (which would be accurate for now, if we had not dropped the 's' somewhere down the medical line). It was so named due to Kraepelin's categories shown above and for a more accurate term which literally means 'split mind.' However, it is not the split personality one thinks of when they think of schizophrenia, instead it refers to a neurological breakdown and various levels of cognitive impairment as a result of such.

Schizophrenia types were as listed below:

• Catatonic Schizophrenia
• Hebephrenic Schizophrenia
• Paranoid Schizophrenia
• Simple (Undifferentiated) Schizophrenia.

They are still treated and diagnosed as such today.

Despite our increased knowledge, our increased technology and our thoroughly contemporary methods of handling things, it is according to my observations that we still think in that pessimistic Victorian outlook on schizophrenia: it's bleak and the person cannot be helped. Although it would be true to say that 90 percent of all schizophrenic patients will never be cured, almost the same number will live perfectly normal lives due to the permanent addition of medication to their daily routine. It is the unfortunate case that some will take Kraepelin's route to cognitive enfeeblement, only very few.

It is due to our increased knowledge of the causes of schizophrenia that we can thank for its improvement and the steps towards its cures. Schizophrenia is often classed as genetic, this point being almost proven in many studies which show around a 20 percent increased chance of those with family members suffering from schizophrenia developing the illness. This is then down to the breakdown of what is neurotransmission pathways in the brain (often Serotonin or Dopamine) which has consequences such as hallucinations (visual and auditory), paranoia, the feeling of internal processes and sensory hallucinations (excluding previously mentioned, including smell and taste - though these are often caused by the patients medication.), thus affording need for studies into such processed.

fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) has allowed psychologists a glance inside the brains of schizophrenics to allow a comparison to the 'normal' human brain. The findings have been quite incredible. As one can see with the image to the right, the fMRI shows that the brain's occipital and frontal lobe activity is far higher in the brain of a patient with schizophrenia than it is in that of a person without. This is part of the reason as to why patients of schizophrenia suffer such hallucinations and is often the direct result of the breakdown of a neurological pathway. This can then be countered by the use of psychoactive medications which then control the levels of activity in each part of the brain (putting aside and fading out the effects of schizophrenia).

Notes:

• Schizophrenia is not a disease but a syndrome, meaning that those who suffer from schizophrenia do not suffer from it full time and do not experience the same symptoms. They experience 'episodes' where they have severe and varied symptoms which differ with each episode.
• It is estimated that there are 10 million people with schizophrenia who are not being treated.
• Individuals suffering from schizophrenia can live normal lives.
• There are differentiations of Schizophrenia (often less severe or varied) including:

1. Schizotypal Personality Disorder (Cluster A)
2. Schizoid Personality Disorder (Cluster A)
3. Schizoaffective Disorder (Co-morbid Schizophrenia and Bi-Polar Disorders)

For further information on this article please don’t hesitate to contact me. Any content that needs revising/adding, please give specifics and I shall do so.