About schizophrenia

What is Schizophrenia?
Schizophrenia is a mental illness. Around one person in 100 will experience schizophrenia (or a similar illness) at some point in their lives.

Schizophrenia and similar illnesses can affect people from all walks of life. The first symptoms often develop in early adulthood, but may remain undiagnosed.

How schizophrenia begins varies from person to person. For some, the illness starts suddenly: the (usually) young person becomes unwell very quickly and quite severely. His or her thoughts may become muddled or he or she may experience hallucinations.

For others, the change is gradual and the person may show signs of withdrawal or neglecting themselves. These changes in behaviour can be very difficult to understand especially when no one has recognised that the person is ill.

Signs and symptoms
Although schizophrenia affects people in different ways, there are recognised signs and symptoms which people may experience, for example:

Hallucinations
The person can see, hear, feel, smell or taste something that does not exist, as if it were real. Hearing voices is the most common hallucination experienced with schizophrenia.

Delusions
The person holds false and often unusual beliefs with unshakeable conviction. For example, someone fears that he or she is being watched or followed by another who wants to control him or her or do him or her harm.

Emotional blunting
The person appears to show little emotion or if he or she does express any it may appear out of context, for example crying at a joke.

Apathy
The person may become withdrawn, avoiding the company of friends and family and staying in his or her room.

Speech difficulties
The person may say very little and rarely initiate a conversation. Or they may speak in a way which will seem muddled and illogical, conveying little meaning.

Thought disorders and strange behaviour
The person may think or act in a way that cannot easily be understood. He or she may become uncharacteristically hostile to members of the family.

Not everyone will experience all of these symptoms. It can be difficult to recognise these as symptoms of an illness and it is easy to perceive the person as disinterested in life. It is important to remember that this behaviour is not deliberate or caused by anything that you or the person you care about have done.

What causes Schizophrenia?
No one really knows the causes of schizophrenia, but a combination of certain factors have been shown to affect the risk of developing it. These include:

Hereditary factors
Hereditary factors alone do not determine that a person will go on to develop schizophrenia. The lifetime risk for schizophrenia in the general population is one in every 100 individuals. However, the risk for children, sisters and brothers of someone already diagnosed with schizophrenia is approximately 1 in 10 - about ten times higher than in the general population.

Drug misuse
Cannabis and drugs with hallucinogenic properties, like LSD and amphetamine or speed, have been shown to bring on schizophrenia in a small number of their users.

Stress
Stress arising from sudden events like a bereavement or leaving home often occurs shortly before an episode of schizophrenia. Though it is not technically a cause, it does appear to bring the illness on. Long-term stress may also exacerbate symptoms of schizophrenia.

Do people recover from Schizophrenia?
After a first episode of schizophrenia, approximately 25% recover within five years, 50% will have fluctuating problems over decades and may experience further episodes of the illness in their lives, 15% will have severe persistent problems and a further 10% will be permanently incapacitated.

At present there is no known cure for schizophrenia. However, early treatment has been shown to improve recovery rates.
Research into the causes of and appropriate treatments for schizophrenia continues to develop our understanding of this illness and improve the quality of life for service users.

For more detailed information about schizophrenia please click on the link to the Royal College of Psychiatrists and their detailed information page. www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinformation/mentalhealthproblems/Schizophrenia.aspx