Paranoid Schizophrenia Symptoms

Although the exact origin has not been completed, the evidence indicates more and more strongly that Paranoid schizophrenia is a severe disorder of brain functioning. Dr Nancy Andreasen said:

Paranoid Schizophrenia Symptoms

“Current evidence concerning the causes of schizophrenia are a mosaic: the only thing clear is the constitution of schizophrenia multifactorial. This includes changes in brain chemistry, genetic factors and even structural changes. The viral brain injury and trauma are not discarded. Schizophrenia is probably a group of related diseases, some caused by one factor, others by other factors. “

The question of the existence of several schizophrenia and not just one disease is not a new subject. First, the diversity of manifestations such as sub-types paranoid, hebephrenic and catatonic forms of atypical as well, which have been known for decades. Second, by analogy with other medical fields such as cancer.The cancer for the lay person is a disease that can target different organs. In fact it is many diseases with similar event. For each type of cancer for a reason other than a specific treatment in the different chances of cure. They are, therefore, various diseases. In schizophrenia may be the same and simply treat it as a single disease that hinders your understanding. Few know about this disease.The most I was able to gain control of symptoms with antipsychotics. Neither his rank, which is a key aspect of the survey was properly completed.

How to Begin?

Paranoid schizophrenia may develop gradually, so slowly that neither the patient nor the people close to notice that something goes wrong: only when they manifest deviant behavior openly. The period between normality and illness triggered can take months.

On the other hand there are patients who develop schizophrenia quickly in a matter of weeks or even days. The person changes his behavior and enters the schizophrenic world, which generally very alarmed and frightened relatives.

There is no fixed rule on how to start: both can get a crisis erupt suddenly and lush, without showing how to get extraordinary changes slowly, and only after a crisis year feature.

Paranoid Schizophrenia usually begins during adolescence or young adulthood. Symptoms appear gradually over months and family and friends who maintain frequent contact may not notice anything. It is more common for a person with contacts spaced by months notice better schizophrenia developing. Usually the first symptoms are difficulty concentrating, hurting performance studies; stress states of unknown origin, even his own person and insomnia and disinterest in social activities with consequent isolation. At some point, even before the schizophrenia have exploded near people realize that something wrong is happening. In today’s parents think it is drugs, friends may think they are questions about sexuality, others judge to be existential questions of the age. Psychotherapy against the will of itself will be indicated and often performed without any improvement for the patient. The persistence of poor concentration will lead to interruption of studies and job loss. Those who do not know what’s going on, and begin to charge up to harass the patient which in turn does not understand what is going on, weak and suffering from the disease for the injustices imposed by the family. It is common in these phases the neglect of the changes in visual appearance or in relation to the mode of being, as the realization of tattoos, piercing, haircuts, strange costumes and neglect of personal hygiene. Since the emergence of the hippies and the punks these strange forms to report, no longer so strange, even going to be confused with them. What adds to the misconception that he’s just a “rebel” or a “social deviant.”

Often there is no clear boundary between the initial phase with abnormal behavior and schizophrenia itself. The family may consider the behavior as having gone too far, but the defense mechanisms of the parents often prevents them from seeing what is happening, it is no fault or choice of his son, is a mental illness, a fact much more serious.

The initial phase can last for months while the family waits for a recovery of behavior. As time goes by deepens the symptoms, the patient has a strange conversation, unreal, is replaced by different and unusual experiences which leads those around him to further consider that the patient is using illicit drugs. It is possible that the patient is already having psychotic symptoms for some time before being taken to a doctor.

When a really serious happens there is no means to deny that something very wrong is happening, either by a physically aggressive attitude, whether by suicide attempt, is to manifest their symptoms clearly to affirm that Jesus Christ is or who is receiving messages further and talking with the dead. At this point the psychosis is unclear, the diagnosis of psychosis is inevitable. At this stage the parents leave the child feeling angry and start to blame themselves, thinking that if they had done nothing before this would be happening, which is not true.Unfortunately, early treatment does not prevent schizophrenia, a disease that is relentless. Medications control symptoms in part: do not normalize the patient.When this happens is by spontaneous remission of the disease and for no other reason.

Diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia

There is no test that accurately diagnose Paranoid Schizophrenia, this depends entirely on the knowledge and experience of the physician, so it is common to see conflicts of diagnosis. The diagnosis is made by the set of symptoms that the patient has symptoms and history as they were emerging and evolving. There are criteria for the doctor to have a starting point, a base where a living, but the way the doctor sees the symptoms is personal. A doctor may consider an insomnia that has not given more importance in the composition of the table, as another doctor might consider it essential. So the tables are not very definite or atypical diagnosis can lead to conflict.

Paranoid Schizophrenia Symptoms

The Course

That schizophrenia is no doubt serious disease because it affects emotions, thinking, perceptions and behavior. But what about gravity that one can not sequels or threaten a person’s life, but rather allows the restoration of normalcy?Gravity is not so much the diagnosis: it is more in the course of the disease.

Classically Kraepelin made the distinction between Paranoid Schizophrenia (dementia praecox) and bipolar disorder (psychosis cyclic) was the possibility of recovery of cycling, while the deteriorated schizophrenic and not recovered. Maybe from there created a tendency to schizophrenia is considered unrecoverable. There is little doubt that many cases do not recover, but there are exceptions and when they arise throughout the rule becomes doubtful, since one loses the limits on which it was operating safely. There are two basic reasons that justify the lack of security over the course of schizophrenia:

Lack of uniform criteria in the past research on the subject.
Difficult to follow over several years a large group of patients.

It’s only a little over 10 years that edited by the World Health Organization, clear and objective criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia. In the previous version, ICD 9, the criteria were “loose” allowing considerable differences between the parameters adopted in the studies, so the differences in results between them was unacceptable ending the uncertainty about the course of schizophrenia.Some are naturally transient psychosis and unique in the life of a person. If by mistake these are considered to be schizophrenic conflict is generated when compared with studies whose criteria required a minimum period of months in the duration of psychosis. Even that last many years psychoses can not be confused with the schizoid personality. Thus, due to lack of rigor in the diagnostics can not be safe in previous studies to the ICD 10 or DSM-III (for studies that were based on American criteria), so the conclusions of these studies can not determine our current conduct. Although ICD-10 have created a technique proven to be more reliable and accurate in diagnosing schizophrenia is not the problem resolved.Only with time and with more research to know the criteria adopted today are correct, correspond to reality. If it is found that in the future are still insufficient, surveys of the ICD-10 will also be discredited. The research must say if we’re diagnosing is a disease with many natural resources or are actually several diseases each with its proper course. Given these difficulties we understand why they are so desired biological techniques, such as the image of positron emission tomography, to study schizophrenia.
Among several studies published over the last decade over the course of schizophrenia, we selected one to illustrate the diversity of outcomes and difficulty in evaluation. The more difficult analysis of a study, more subject to failure and it is wrong conclusions.
In this study we selected six people who had completed ten years earlier, criteria for schizophrenia, and all achieved remission of symptoms. With this type of study it is possible to verify that the remission would be detected at the time permanent or a phase of permanent improvement prior to chronicity. As a result, even so small a group, we found several different courses. Three remained in complete remission, a deteriorating course followed a continuous and two had fluctuating symptoms. No clinical differences were identified that distinguished patients. To tell if the patient was with or without psychotic symptoms was used a structured questionnaire to interview all accurate, so possible “defects” left by previous psychosis.

Psychiatry, 61 (1) :20-34 Spring 1998 Torgalsbøen AK, Rund BR

In this study we can see that complete remission is no guarantee of cure. This seemingly trivial as it is very important in the relationship with the patient and his family for that 100% of them will wonder if good, will turn to what they were. At the moment no mental health professional can tell what will happen. To say that is not going to improve an iatrogenic cause, say it’ll be good can be deceiving which ultimately cost the trust in the profession.

What cause Paranoid schizophrenia?

About the cause of Paranoid schizophrenia only know two things: it is multifactorial and complex. The brain, itself, has an extremely complex operation and largely unknown. This complexity is significantly increased, and we have to consider that brain function depends on the functioning of other body parts like blood vessels, liver metabolism, kidney filtration, absorption of the intestines. Finally, considering other variables such as the not inconsiderable social and family environment, the complexity becomes unattainable for the resources we have. Schizophrenia is probably the result of all this. In the history of medical diseases have been discovered many times by groups or activities at risk. People passing in a certain place and contracted diseases common to the region opened in previous research. Places where the soil was poor in iodine, people took goiter, there were certain places where people could buy mosquito malaria, dengue, yellow fever. Sites infested by rats, acquiring leptospirosis. With schizophrenia, never able to identify risk factors, except the relationship with some schizophrenic. This fact complicates the investigation because it provides no clues in which medical researchers must rely on to search. Since there are no clues, we are forced to choose a theme that can intuitively relate to schizophrenia and investigate it. That is what has been done.

Biochemistry Theory

The most widely accepted in part due to the success of the medication: People with schizophrenia suffer from a neurochemical imbalance, so failures in cell communication group of neurons involved in behavior, thought and sensory perception.

Cerebral Blood Flow Theory

With modern techniques of brain imaging research (Positron Emission Tomography-PET) researchers are finding areas that are activated during the processing of images are they normal or pathological. People with schizophrenia seem to have difficulty in “coordination” of activities among different brain areas.For example, when thinking or speaking, most people show increased activity in the frontal lobes, along with decreased activity in areas not related to this focus, as the hearing. In schizophrenic patients we observed activation of these anomalies. For example, activation of the auditory area when there is no sound (possibly due to auditory hallucinations), no inhibition of the activity of areas outside the main focus, inability to activate as most people, certain brain areas.
The PET measures the intensity of activity by the blood flow: a brain region is active, receiving more blood supply, which can be picked up by local blood flow.She showed an abnormal function, but we do not have the relation of cause and effect between what the images reveal and disease: that is, we do not know if the anomalies, the deficit of blood flow in certain areas, are the cause of disease orthe consequence of the disease.

Molecular Biological Theory

It is speculated about anomalies in the pattern of certain brain cells in their training before birth. This irregular pattern can drive to a possible cause of pre-natal state of schizophrenia or predisposing factors for the development of the disease.

Genetic Theory

Maybe this is better demonstrated in all theories. In past decades many studies of family members showed a linear and direct correlation between the degree of kinship and the chances of development of schizophrenia. People with no schizophrenic relatives have 1% chance that they will develop schizophrenia, with some distant relative that chance increases to 3-5%. With a parent increases to 10 to 15%, with a schizophrenic brother, the odds rise to about 20% when the brother has the same genetic code (identical twin) the chances of the other brother likely to have schizophrenia are 50 to 60%. The genetic theory thus explains much of which comes from the disease. If you explain everything, the incidence of schizophrenia among identical twins would be 100%.

Stress Theory

Stress does not cause schizophrenia, but stress can worsen symptoms. Extreme situations such as wars, epidemics, calamities do not cause people who have experienced such situations more schizophrenia than those who did not pass.

Theory of Drugs

There is no evidence that legal or illegal drugs cause schizophrenia. They may, however, aggravate the symptoms of those who already have the disease.Certain drugs such as cocaine or stimulants can cause symptoms similar to schizophrenia, but there is evidence to come to cause it.

Nutritional Theory

A balanced diet is recommended to everyone, but there is no evidence that the lack of certain vitamins trigger schizophrenia in people predisposed. Treatment techniques for megadoses of vitamins have no foundation laid for a while.

Viral Theory

The theory that infection by a virus known or unknown trigger schizophrenia in people predisposed been well studied. Today this theory has been abandoned for lack of evidence although many authors continue considering it as a possible causal factor.

Social Theory

Social factors as triggers of schizophrenia are often raised, but the impossibility of studying them by the methods available today, nothing can be said about him.All scientific research to isolate the variable in the social environment estudo.No if there is no way to do this without hurting deeply ethical.

When a child has schizophrenia

… When a child has schizophrenia, he suffers and the family also suffers. In the first movement, tries to hide the disease because of social prejudice. When the disease does not pass, the dreams fall apart, the preservation of the image is no longer meaningful because the disease is more serious than the bias.Hopelessness comes along with the sadness and sense of loss of life from the perspective of the future that he fell ill has to be overcome. The disease does not excuses: Force and force us to change your attitude to life before the pain.Schizophrenia can not be regarded as a misfortune: it has to be seen as a natural barrier to our plans and desires. When someone in the family gets schizophrenia is necessary that the whole family to change, adapt to remain happy despite the pain. The papers do not publish, but human beings can be happy despite the disease.
Schizophrenia is a chronic and disabling disease that destroys the youth and prevent the natural development. Usually begins in late adolescence or early adulthood in a slow and gradual. The period of natural conflicts of adolescence and the slow pace of his early confuse people who are close. Symptoms can be confused with “existential crisis”, “revolts against the system”, “selfish disposition,” drug use, etc..

Positive and Negative Symptoms

The division of psychotic symptoms in positive and negative aims to objectively tell the patient’s condition. Taking as reference a normal, positive symptoms are those that should not be present such as hallucinations, and negative ones that should be present but are absent, such as mood, capacity planning and execution, for example. So positive symptoms are not good signs, not the negative symptoms are worse than the positive.

Positive

Hallucinations – the most common in schizophrenia are auditory. The patient usually hears voices disparaging the humble, curse, order acts that patients reproach, threaten, talk to each other speaking ill of the patient. You can always be the same voice, can be of several people can be voices of people known or unknown, and may be incomprehensible murmurs, or clear and understandable. In the same way that anyone is upset to hear such things, patients are also afflicted with the content of what they hear, even more because they can not escape the voices. Visual hallucinations in schizophrenia are rare, whenever there should cast doubt on the diagnosis, favoring organic brain disorders.

Delusions – Delusions far more common in schizophrenia are persecutory. Are the misconceptions that patients have that they are being persecuted, they want to kill him or cause him harm. Delusions may also be bizarre as you think you are being controlled by aliens sending radio waves to your brain. The delusion of identity (think it’s someone else) is the hallmark of the typical mental patient who believes Napoleon. In Brazil, the most common one is considered God or Jesus Christ.

Thought disorders – These symptoms are difficult for the layman to identify: they nonpsychiatric physicians fail to perceive them, not because they are discrete, but because the confusion is such that you can not even call what you see. There are several types of thought disorders, the diagnosis must be accurate because the behavior is different between the schizophrenic who has this symptom and one patient with a mental disorder, which may be a neurological emergency.
Changing the sense of self – Just as delusions, these symptoms are unlike anything that we may experience, except in pathological mental states. Patients with these changes say they are not themselves that another entity took possession of his body and that is no longer herself, or simply that there is, your body does not exist.

Negative

Lack of motivation and apathy – This state is very common, almost a unanimity in patients after the crisis ended with positive symptoms. The patient does not feel like doing anything, is lying down or watching TV all the time, often the only thing he does is smoke, eat and sleep. To neglect of personal appearance and hygiene. Apathetic patients are not interested in anything, not for what used to like.
Blunting of affect – the emotions are not felt as before. Usually a person is happy or sad about things good or bad respectively. These patients are incapable of feeling as before. They may even realize it rationally and report to others, but in no way can change that. The indifference of patients can generate anger consequent apathy, but patients are not at fault and that are often misunderstood.
Social isolation – isolation is almost a consequence of the above symptoms. A person can not feel or be interested in anything, and whose thoughts are damaged and can not distinguish the real from the unreal world can not live normally in society.
Negative symptoms should not be confused with depression. Depression is treatable and usually respond to medications, since negative symptoms of schizophrenia do not improve with any type of antipsychotic. The great hope of the new antipsychotics act on negative symptoms did not materialize, however these symptoms may improve spontaneously.

How to recognize schizophrenia even in the beginning?

The early diagnosis of schizophrenia is a difficult task because none of the changes is unique to the incipient schizophrenia, and these changes are common to other diseases as well as socially deviant behaviors but psychologically normal.Early diagnosis for heart failure can save a life, as in the case of schizophrenia the only advantage of early diagnosis and treatment can begin immediately, which in itself does not imply recovery. Early diagnosis is better than late diagnosis, as has already been delayed a lot of suffering on the patient and his family, something that early treatment may prevent. The diagnosis is the exclusive task of the psychiatrist, but if parents do not suspect that this consultation with a specialist is needed, nothing can be done until the situation worsens and the search for work is hopeless. Any person is liable to come to have schizophrenia, most cases had no history of relatives with the disease in the family. Below are listed some tips: as above, but none of them are features are a parameter for observation.

Difficulty sleeping, the alternation of day into night, hanging around the house at night, or more rarely oversleep
Social isolation, indifference to the feelings of others
Loss of social relations that had
Periods of hyperactivity and periods of inactivity
Difficulty concentrating coming to prevent further studies
Difficulty making decisions and solving common problems
Concerns with unusual occult, esotericism and religion
Hostility, suspicion and fears unjustified
Overreaction to the disapproval of relatives and friends
Deterioration of personal hygiene
Travel or desire to travel to places with no connection to the personal situation and without specific purposes
Involvement with excessive writing or childlike drawings without a defined objective
Emotional reactions or unusual characteristics of the individual
Lack of facial expressions (deadpan)
Marked decrease in the blink of an eye, or blinking incessantly
Excessive sensitivity to noise and lights
Change in sensation of touch and taste
Use of foreign words and phrases of the building
Irrational statements
Unusual behavior such as refusal to touch people, weird hairstyles, threats of self harm and injuries on himself
Changes in personality
Abandonment of usual activities
Inability to express joy, to cry or cry too unreasonably, unmotivated laughter
Abuse of alcohol or drugs
Awkward positions
Refusal to touch others

None of these signs by themselves prove mental illness, but can display it. For ages these signs may suggest involvement with drugs, or pathological personality typical of old revolt. Differentiate schizophrenia from involvement with drugs can be done by observing the constant concern with money, in case of involvement with drugs, something rare in schizophrenia. The pathological personality does not show changes in behavior, it is always misleading, since the tender ages. In incipient schizophrenia albeit slowly, there is a change in the course of the person’s behavior, not personality pathology. In typical teenage rebellion there will always be a reasonable cause to justify the behavior, especially if the parents have many conflicts with each other.

The Family of schizophrenic

The schizophrenic patient suffers intensely with your condition and your family too, there is no way this be avoided. Unfortunately the programs of political and social reintegration of the mentally ill in society simply ignore the suffering and needs of the family, which are huge. This is seen as dysfunctional, cold, indifferent or even hostile to the patient. Like the schizophrenic patient suffers twice, by disease and prejudice, the family also suffers twice, with the child’s disease and the social discrimination and misunderstanding. In a poor country like Brazil, assisting the family of the schizophrenic has to be an essential government program, so you can preserve the social performance (study, work, profession) of the relatives of schizophrenic patients. The level of recovery that has been the treatment of schizophrenia is very low, the healthy siblings of these patients must be helped not to have their lives prevented from developing because of the schizophrenia of a brother.

The title of rehumanization treatment of schizophrenics, we intend to close psychiatric hospitals allocating them to other services that do not include meeting the needs of relatives of schizophrenics. As it stands, this project will not only worsen the situation of the patient, but also his family. The problems usually occur in families of schizophrenics are as follows:

Weigh … ”We feel like we have lost our son”
Anxiety … ”We are afraid to leave him or hurting his feelings”
Fear … ”It might hurt yourself or others?”
Shame and guilt … ”We are guilty of this? What do others think?”
Sense of isolation … ”Nobody understands us”
Sorrow … ”Why did this happen to us?”
Depression … ”I can not talk about it without crying?”
Denial of the disease … ”This can not happen in our family”
Denial of gravity … ”It will soon pass”
Mutual fault … ”Were it not for his relative weird one …”
Inability to think or talk about something else other than the disease … ”Our whole life revolves around our sick child”
Marital problems … ”My relationship with my husband became cold, I feel dead inside”
Separation … ”I can not stand my wife”
Concern about moving … ”Maybe if we move somewhere else things will get better”
Tired … ”Ageing twice in the last year”
Exhaustion … ”I feel exhausted, unable to do anything”
Concern for the future … ”What will happen when we are not present, what is it?”
Excessive use of tranquilizers or alcohol … ”Today I do things I had never done before”
Social isolation … ”People come to us, but we can not make the programs we offer”
Constant search for explanations … ”Is this something that we happened to him?”
Individualization … ”We have no family life”
Ambivalence … ”We love him, but would prefer to stay that way if …”

Good signs of recovery

It has been observed that some patients recover more frequently than others. This group has identified a set of characteristics that can serve as a parameter, a reference to recovery. These symptoms are not a guarantee, but increase the chances of these people to recover. The signs are:

Ability to feel and express emotions (joy, excitement, sadness, despair, etc.).
Not having feelings of grandiosity.
Present hallucinations (most often auditory)
Appearance of acute confusion in
Not to isolate yourself, do not present disturbances of thought
Ideas of persecution and distrust of conduct are also signs of good prognosis

There is no unanimity on these symptoms, there will always be those who challenge the assertion that indicate good prognosis. Catatonic symptoms (immobility or excessive arousal) and mental confusion despite apparent greater severity can be solved faster by letting the person with no problems.

Advice for parents

Learn to recognize the early symptoms that may indicate a relapse before the frame is complete install.Seek medical attention immediately, without delays.
Seek to learn about the disease to better understand the child in your needs.
Establish realistic expectations for the individual condition of the sick child.
Observe and learn to better be able to report symptoms.
Learn to respect your own limits: you can not adequately help while looking for help.
Try as much as possible to establish a friendly relationship with an established goal and purpose.
Encourage relatives and friends of your child establish a healthy relationship.
Communicate clearly and objectively, without mince words or leave a message implied.
Mainly: to have an emotionally stable home environment. Even if not hostile expressions directed to the sick person and damage affecting the schizophrenic.No charges exert on it. Express both positive emotions (joy) and the negative (anger) in moderation.

Principles for use of medications
The remedies are the only alternative to treat schizophrenia, other forms of therapy complement but not replace medications. However, there is a natural resistance to the use of them and this is just a consequence of how we understand the disease. If we take the medication as strange aversion to the body will occur inevitably, but if we look at the drug substances as regulators of brain activity unbalanced, we can see them as friends. The patient has no guilt about being an unregulated part of the brain, but can use the healthy side (common sense) to make the decision to treat. The drugs, therefore, adjust only do what was misplaced. Unfortunately in the case of schizophrenia medications not know who undertake this task completely, restoring the normal patient. But for now we have a partial help. Half pain is less bad than a complete pain.

Paranoid Schizophrenia Symptoms