Attitudes towards schizophrenia itself and patients suffering from the
mental illness are considered a personal matter, with different physicians and researchers placing differing emphases on
clinical and
theoretical facets. In terms of research and
treatment plans that consider schizophrenia, attitudes are often influenced by ideological considerations.
Schizophrenia can be defined as a serious mental illness that usually manifests during the adolescent and early adult years. Schizophrenia can be characterized in terms of increasing disorganisation of general personality functions, withdrawal from interpersonal relations into a personally subjective world of thought and idea, often leading to both auditory and visual hallucinations and deep delusions and progressive developmental reggresion. Symptoms may develop over a period of time, or may appear suddenly and often fluctuate between periods of improvement and chronic relapse depending on the
individual. In this way, schizophrenia is differntiable from other specifically organic mental illnesses such as dementia and disorders affecting memory, intelligence or orientaton.
Studies which consider schizophrenia -whether based on biomedical,
genetic, subjectively phsychiatric, individual and interactional
psychology and social approaches - all emphasise the importance of comprehensive thinking when tackling questions on the pathogenesis and nature of the illness.
The most common course of treatment of schizophrenia is the use of neuroleptic drugs in combination with rehabilitave measures. The priciple advantage of neuroleptic drug treatment is their ease of administration to large numbers of patients both in clinical and outpatient settings. The advent of neuroleptic treatment coupled with rehabilitaion has madeit possible for a move from typically inpatient care pre-1960’s to a more outpatient centred approach to care of schizophrenic patients in the community.
Recent developments in schizphrenia care has emphasised the importance of a holistic approach to treatment incorporating potective factors within the patients own environment including familial support networks and an approach to care which takes a more individualised and therapuetic approach, termed ‘need-adapted treatment’. The move to need-adapted treatment now means that the majority of schizophrenic patients are now treated within the community employing a psychiatic framework of diverse and varied services tailored to the inividuals needs. Such services include supportive measures and social welfare services and co-operation between public and private sectors is now becoming more commonplace – thus easing limited resources and sharing the support between disciplines.
More summaries about the SCHIZOPHRENIA Its Origins and Need-Adapted Treatment