Schizophernia Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Schizophernia - Essay Example ioning for six months accompanied with disorganized behavior, mixture of psychotic symptoms (hallucinations and delusions), disorganized speech, motivational impairment and emotional disturbance. The disorder typically begins during early childhood or adolescence. Here, patients may not show symptoms or may show mild traits like mild cognitive disorganization, impaired social competence and anhedonia (diminished capacity to feel pleasure). Such traits may only be recognized in retrospect. They may be noticed more with impairment of academic, social and vocational functioning (Noll, 2007). In this phase, subclinical signs and symptoms may emerge. Such symptoms include isolation or withdrawal, unusual thoughts, irritability, perceptual distortions, suspiciousness, and disorganization. The onset of clear Schizophrenia (hallucinations and delusions) may be slow and insidious (over years) or sudden (over weeks or days) (Noll, 2007). In this phase the individual experiences psychotic symptoms such as delusions, grossly disorganized behavior and hallucinations (Noll, 2007). It is the state of full development of the disorder. The behavior of the patient may be so bizarre and extreme that it is necessary to hospitalize them. This phase may last for many weeks or months in case the patient is not treated with medication. In this phase obvious psychosis subsides but the patient still exhibit negative symptoms like lack of emotion, social withdrawal, and extremely low energy levels. The patient continues to hold strange beliefs, supernatural intelligence (Noll, 2007). The signs and symptoms of the disorder fall into three broad categories: negative symptoms, positive symptoms and cognitive symptoms. The positive symptoms refer to psychotic behaviors that are not seen in healthy individuals (Noll, 2007). Patients with positive symptoms usually lose touch with reality. Such symptoms include Individuals have trouble organizing their thoughts or connecting them logically.