Understanding Schizophrenia: From Its Discovery to Current Research

The disease schizophrenia was discovered in 1887 by Dr. Emile Kraepelin. It was first classified as “dementia praecox” to distinguish it from forms of dementia that occur later in life. The term “schizophrenia,” schizo (split), and phone (mind) was created in 1911 by Eugene Bleuer (Gregg, 2014). This was done because Kraeplin’s name for the disease had become misleading when researchers discovered Schizophrenia did not cause mental deterioration as they had known that dementia would. The mental illness was then subdivided into categories based on the symptoms that were present. Disorganized, catatonic, paranoid, residual, and undifferentiated were the first types of Schizophrenia identified. Soon after, Bleuer introduced a distinction between basic and accessory symptoms. Accessory symptoms consist of delusions and hallucinations, while basic symptoms show apathy, diminished speech, and lack of emotion. The basic symptoms are what gave this disease such a distinctive diagnosis profile.

The topic of this mental health disorder is insanely interesting because everybody seems to know the term Schizophrenia, but I do not believe that many have researched and learned about the disorder and all that it entails. Many in society just associate the term with craziness and insanity. Not only does this disease affect the individual diagnosed internally, but also their relationships with other people due to the paranoia they have developed. This paranoia often comes from a schizophrenic withdrawing and isolating themselves from any type of social activities. Absurd and suspicious beliefs begin to disrupt their abilities to interact with others. It is hard to reason with individuals with Schizophrenia because they are incapable of thinking rationally.

The common signs and symptoms they have are delusional thoughts, anger, a tendency to argue, intensity when interacting with others, and violent behavior. Schizophrenics are unable to carry out daily routine activities because of these symptoms they face around the clock. According to “How Does Schizophrenia Affect People? Here’s what you need to know” (2018), Schizophrenia disables an individual from keeping up with their personal hygiene due to their symptoms being so severe. Other signs and symptoms include impaired communication skills, incomprehensible or illogical speech, emotional indifference, and infantile behavior. Because of this, they lose focus and train of thought on how they are supposed to carry out their duties for the day.

Several studies have been done in an attempt to find more answers for the mental illness Schizophrenia. The similarities in the physiology of a human and a monkey allowed researchers to study the animal and see how the monkey’s behavior relates to a schizophrenic. This research study was done by a group of psychologists aimed to investigate the effects of prenatal damage by exposing monkeys to radiation and whether brain damage was a factor in the development of Schizophrenia. The procedure included half of the monkeys being exposed to radiation at 70-80 days gestation and others exposed at 33-40 days. The doses were either high (3 to 6 times with 100 Rads) or low radiation (4 times with 50 Rads).

The results showed that irritated monkeys developed hallucinations and difficulty remembering and problem-solving tests. Ones that suffered damage between 70-80 days into metal development had more noticeable abnormalities. This shows that Schizophrenia in humans can be caused by damage to neurons in the cortex during mental development, and brain damage, in conjunction with life events around puberty time, can allow the expression of disease symptoms (Damani, 2011). Because this mental disorder is still such a mystery to the medical field, the future of research and findings for Schizophrenia is very bright.

Medical providers will continue to test and research to find a possible cure or successfully identify preventive measures. Victims of this illness are born with it and most often times develop later stages and heavier symptoms as they progress through their childhood to their early adult life. Many drugs have been approved that mainly focus on the blockage of psychosis symptoms and possible hallucinations, but there have not been many discoveries for the other severe symptoms they deal with. Research has said that the future for Schizophrenia is looking to focus on pathology and future ways to help prevent genetic components of the disease (Maric, 2016).

As the perplexity of Schizophrenia continues, research and other laboratory findings will hopefully be discovered to help enrich the lives of the innocent people affected by this illness. With the magnificent work of medical providers and researchers constantly working on this brain disease, there is wishful thinking for future discoveries and success.

WORKS CITED

1. Gregg, C. (2014). Schizophrenia at the Synapse. Science Translational Medicine, 6(222), 222ec24.
2. Maric, N., Jovicic, M., Mihaljevic, M., & Miljevic, C. (2016). Improving Current Treatments for Schizophrenia: FUTURE TREATMENTS FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA. Drug Development Research,77(7), 357-367.

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