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Is There A Possible Cure For Schizophrenia? Know Everything Related To The Disorder?
Have you come across anyone that cannot differentiate between reality and imaginary thoughts they create? The human body is compared to the universe for a reason, we never know what types of disorder or disease await. One such disorder is Schizophrenia which has various symptoms, types, and diagnosis methods. But, is there a cure for schizophrenia? Let us discuss all the related information and determine if there is an existing cure for schizophrenia.
First of all, what is schizophrenia? It is a chronic psychiatric disease or disorder which makes people experience certain distortions related to reality like hallucinations and delusions.
In studies conducted by researchers in the United States, it is seen that it affects nearly 1% of the overall population. There are misconceptions associated with schizophrenia, for instance, people relate it to split personality disorder but it is not. Both are different. Thus disease can occur in women and men of all ages, the most probable age starts after the 20s. Before proceeding to cure schizophrenia, let us take a look at what are the early or late symptoms related to this disease.
Symptoms Of Schizophrenia
Early Symptoms Of Schizophrenia
Early symptoms of this disease show up in teenagers or in their 20s. These signs or symptoms are usually overlooked by the parents and other adults because of the typical behavior pattern of adolescents. These symptoms can be seen in other kids too who don’t have schizophrenia and raised by permissive parenting styles.
These symptoms occurring early are:
- Isolation of the affected with friends or family.
- Social groups and friends change.
- Focus or concentration of affected changes.
- The problem in sleeping.
- Problems of agitation and irritability.
- The decrease in academic performance and grades.
- Difficulties in completing school work.
Positive Symptoms
These symptoms are considered to be deciding factors and otherwise, an individual doesn’t show such symptoms in normal conditions. These can help you conclude that schizophrenia condition is positive.
- Hallucinations: Affected individuals go through signs and symptoms of imaginary illusions called hallucinations. These are often created by individuals’ minds and are not real. These include seeing things that are not present, hearing voices, or smelling something that does not exist at that position.
- Delusions: This occurs when an individual has factual knowledge and shreds of evidence but still believes in something else.
- Thought disorders: This includes unusual ways of processing information and thought processes.
- Movement Disorders: This may include strange postures of the body and agitated movements.
Negative Symptoms
Schizophrenia has negative symptoms too, these include interruption in a person’s behavior, typical emotions, and abilities. The negative symptoms of schizophrenia include various signs like:
- The speech and thinking become disorganized, the person tends to change the topic of discussions very frequently and uses made-up phrases and words to have a conversation.
- The individual tends to have trouble while controlling impulses.
- Usually, a lack of expression and emotions is observed.
- The excitement and interest they had for life vanishes.
- Isolation from social gatherings and relatives
- The individual has trouble while expressing pleasure
- It becomes difficult to begin or stick to the plans created
- Day to day activities become difficult to conduct.
Cognitive Symptoms
These categories of symptoms are subtle yet difficult to detect at times. However, you should know that schizophrenia disorder can affect the thinking power and memory of a person.
The cognitive symptoms are:
- Disorganized thinking, for example, you might face problems while focusing on a problem.
- The executive functioning becomes poor which means the person has difficulty in determining and understanding information that is to be used to take a certain decision.
- Lack of insight and thinking power to be aware of the signs and symptoms they are experiencing.
Schizophrenia can occur due to genetic, biological, and environmental reasons. It is important to know that it has many types, to know the type of schizophreniac disorder one is facing, they have to undergo many tests and diagnosis methods. After the exact type of disorder is found, it becomes easy to proceed with the cure.
Cure For Schizophrenia
As of now, there is no particular cure found or isolated for the disorder schizophrenia. However, that should not worry anyone having schizophrenia because research has been able to discover treatments related to it, a downside is that these treatments include lifelong medications and other cure.
These treatments are very essential as they can reduce and control the ongoing symptoms of schizophrenia in a person.
It is very crucial to get regular appointments and treatments from expert doctors and psychiatrists. Make sure you visit a healthcare expert that has previous knowledge of how to deal with patients having this disorder. You are not limited to working with doctors for finding a cure for schizophrenia or carrying the treatment, you may also work along with case managers and social workers.
Possible treatments or cure for schizophrenia that you have to stick to throughout your life to reduce the extent of symptoms include the following:
Medications (Antipsychotic)
The most common medication prescribed to a person suffering from schizophrenia is antipsychotic medicines. These medicines are very important as they can help in stopping hallucinations, symptoms of psychosis, and delusions.
For hallucinations and delusions, these medicines are extremely useful but in the cause of severe psychosis symptoms you might be hospitalized and the treatment will be done under expert guidance and medical supervision.
These medications are the cornerstone for schizophrenia treatment. Medications are thought to have control over symptoms as they are able to affect the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain.
The psychiatrist and doctor involved might use different drugs with combinations of different doses in different intervals of time to have control over symptoms and get the desired result and brainpower.
You may also be advised to consume anti-anxiety drugs and anti-depression treatments. Do not expect the result to show within a week or so, as the results can take several weeks to occur or notice improvements.
It is very important to know that medications for a cure for schizophrenia have possible downsides and side effects too due to which an individual going through schizophrenia will be reluctant to proceed with further medications. Individual’s willingness to have cooperated with treatment methods and drugs affect their choices in drugs. For instance, if an individual is resisting taking oral drugs and medications like pills for treatment might be given regular injections as a cure for schizophrenia or vice-versa.
Before proceeding to consume any drugs, consult your healthcare expert and know all the possible side effects and benefits of consuming that particular drug.
Second Generations Antipsychotics
These second-generation antipsychotics are newer and generally more preferred than the usual antipsychotic medications because they possess a very little risk of side effects or downsides to the disorder. The second-generation antipsychotic drugs include the following drugs or medications:
- Aripiprazole or abilify
- Brexpipirazole or rexulti
- Asenapine or saphris
- Capriprazine or vraylar
- Iioperidone or fanapt
- Clozapine or versacloz/ clozaril.
- Lurasidone or latuda
- paliperdione or Invega
- Olnzapine or Zyprexa
- Quetiapine or seroquel
- Ziprazidone or ziodone
- Risperidone or Risperdal.
These are certain important second-generation antipsychotic medicines that doctors might suggest you take. However, it is important to know which out of all of these will be suitable for your condition, and for that consulting an expert is of utmost crucial before proceeding with the cure for schizophrenia.
First-Generation Antipsychotics
These are not as prescribed as the second-generation antipsychotic medications because the downsides or side effects of these medications are very frequent and potentially more significant side effects in the neurological system are seen. There is even a possibility in few cases to develop a movement disorder known as Tardive Dyskinesia which may be reversible or irreversible. The medications in the first-generation antipsychotic are:
- Chlorpromazine
- Haloperidol
- Fluphenazine
- Perphenazine
You will find that these medications are often less costly or cheaper than second-generation antipsychotics mainly the ones for generic versions that may be an important consideration in case of long-term treatments.
Injectable Antipsychotics (Long-term)
Some of the antipsychotics might be given as subcutaneous injections or intramuscular injection. These are often given once after completion of 2 weeks or 4 weeks which totally depends upon the medication. You can consult your doctor to know more about these injectable medications if you are not fond of or have problems with oral pills in form of a cure for schizophrenia.
Some common medications that are considered while going for injections are:
- Aripiprazole or Aristada and Abify Maintena
- Halopediodol Decanoate
- Fluphenazine Decanoate
- Risperdoe or Perseris, Risperdal consta
- Paliperidone or Invega Trinza, Invega Sustenna.
Psychosocial Internventions
After the psychosis recedes, along with continuing with the medications interventions related to psychological or social interventions are very important. Different types of interventions include:
- Individual Therapies: These therapies can help an individual to normalize the pattern of thoughts they are experiencing which is otherwise a problem. Along with this, learning how you can cope with the stress associated with it and identify warning signs occurring early for instance signs of relapse may help individuals having schizophrenia manage the patterns of illness and give a cure for schizophrenia.
- Training Of Social Skills: This includes improvement in social interactions and improvement in communication which leads to an improved ability to take participate in routine activities overall.
- Family Therapy: These therapies are very necessary for the individual as well as their families as in bits of help and support along with education to families of individuals dealing with schizophrenia making it a cure for schizophrenia.
- Supported employment and Vocational Rehabilitation: These include focusing on helping individuals that have schizophrenia disorder to find new jobs or keep up with the jobs.
It is seen that many individuals who have schizophrenia disorder require some types of living support daily. Many communities have also developed programs that help individuals having schizophrenia with employment or jobs, housing facilities, self-help centers and groups, crisis situations, etc.
Someone among the team of treatment providers and case managers can help the individual find resources. Having appropriate treatments it has been observed that many people are able to have control over their illness and manage schizophrenia.
Hospitalizations:
When there are very severe symptoms of schizophrenia or during crisis periods, it becomes important to hospitalized the individual because it is very necessary to ensure safety, an adequate amount of sleep, proper nutrition along basic hygiene.
Electroconvulsive Therapy
There are cases in adults who have schizophrenia that does not see any results from the oral treatments are advised to proceed for ECT (Electroconvulsive therapy). This is also very beneficial for someone who has depression along with a cure for schizophrenia.
How To Prepare For Appointment When You Are Going For Cure For Schizophrenia To A Doctor?
If you are looking for help for someone having schizophrenia disorder and finding a cure for schizophrenia, you can start with the following tips and see the doctor. The doctors can however set your appointments with a professional or expert psychiatrist to discuss a cure for schizophrenia and related treatments.
What To Do?
To prepare for an appointment with a doctor you have to first prepare a list having:
- Symptoms you think the individual is experiencing so that you can proceed with the appointment.
- Personal information related to major stress and recent changes in life.
- Medications, herbs, vitamins, or any other supplements the individual has taken including the doses of that supplement.
- Prepare a list of questions too that you want to ask the doctor for betting a better understanding. Some common questions you can ask the doctor are the symptoms of the disease, different tests needed, diagnosis methods, alternatives to treatments, how to provide them support and care? etc.
The doctor or healthcare professional is likely to ask you more questions other than the list you have prepared, make sure you answer them accurately to provide the best treatment to your loved one having schizophrenia.
