schizophrenia!

Thanks for this valuable information. My mother is suffering this, as my grandfather had it too. But i tried a complete steps to make her control with tablets and she is feeling much better with our new pet animals.

I think this is really, REALLY basic information about the "disease."I've been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic, and right now, I'm not on medication (my psychiatrist doesn't want to start it until the school year has finished out, so that if something goes wrong with it, I don't end up failing everything). As such, I've had to do quite a bit of research on it, and I'd like to add a little bit to your description: Paranoid schizophrenia is the easiest to treat, and the patients with this diagnosis usually appear much more normal than hebephrenic or catatonic schizophrenics. You'd tend to see more of the delusions and hallucinations than most of the other symptoms--they aren't quite as likely to have flat or blunt affect, though it's still a decent chance (trust me...). Hebephrenics tend to be the more disorganized schizophrenics. They may exhibit word salads, disorganized thoughts, writing and speech that doesn't make sense (due to disorganization of the thoughts), and they can have delusions and hallucinations as well. They, too, can be rather flat in affect, but (so that I don't have to keep explaining about affect) the degree of blunting/flattening varies from individual to individual. Catatonics either don't move and stay in weird positions, or they move too much. More frequently than the other subtypes, they might not talk for long periods of time (I think it's called mutism). They can have this thing called waxy flexibility, where if someone moves an arm from one position to another, they keep it in the new position rather than moving it back. Once again, they too can suffer from hallucinations and delusions. Undifferentiated schizophrenia is basically a mix and match of different symptoms from different subtypes. Residual schizophrenia is basically the disorder as treated with medication, with the negative symptoms still present, but the positive under control. Negative symptoms are things that are taken away from a personality (affect) and positive symptoms are things that are added to it (hallucinations, delusions). I understand that this is a very simple rundown of the different types of schizophrenia, but for its purposes, it works. I'd also like to add that a good book to read (that I could relate to a LOT) to get in the head of a paranoid schizophrenic is Inside Out, by Terry Trueman. It's an easy read (at least I thought so), but it's a good one.

That is some really good information. Thank you for sharing it. I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder (10+ years ago) and schizoaffective disorder (about 2 years ago). This diagnosis is difficult because the patient shows some signs of schizophrenia, but not all. The diagnosis could be just bipolar disorder, but with mild hallucinations, both visual and auditory, that is also difficult. Therefore, the middle diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. The important thing to remember is that, with the right medication, people with these disorders are able to function very well.

I recently watched a program called"Most Evil" Doctors on this program followed 50 recently diagnosed patients with schizophrenia over the course of 5 years.They were continually given MRI tests and it was found that the brain actually changed beginning in the back and traveling to the front over time. I know I am not explaining this exactly the way the program did I just wanted to share it.I find psychology very interesting and like to learn all I can.