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Mental Disorders: Acute Schizophrenia

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Schizophrenia, also known as split-personality disorder, is a severe and chronic mental disorder that affects a person’s overall thinking and behavior. Often times, sufferers of schizophrenia seem to have lost touch with reality, caused by the disabling symptoms of the disorder. Schizophrenia has a variety of treatments, both medical and psychological. Because this illness affects people is many different ways, there are many subtypes to schizophrenia. Although there is no known cause for schizophrenia, there is a range of theories that suggest causes; from genetics and biology to a viral infection and immune disorder. The symptoms of schizophrenia can be categorized into two main groups: positive symptoms and negative symptoms. Positive …show more content…
Acute schizophrenia occurs suddenly in an otherwise healthy person. This type is believed to be onset by a stressful life event. Acute schizophrenia can be recognized from the chronic version of the illness, but those with acute schizophrenia can go on to develop the chronic disorder later in life. The people who develop acute schizophrenia often show signs of being highly functional before being diagnosed. This plays a role in how patients with acute schizophrenia respond better to treatment than those with the chronic type. Acute schizophrenia is also treated more easily because the positive symptom of the disease respond better to medication than the negative symptoms. Many psychiatrists will distinguish acute schizophrenia from the other subtypes based on several criteria such as change in social behavior, suicide attempts and the need for …show more content…
Males tend to develop schizophrenia earlier in life than females. The average age for onset is 18 in males and 25 in females. Approximately 1.1% of the world’s population ages 18 and older are affected by schizophrenia. This means that at any given point, about 51 million people suffer with schizophrenia. Compared to other well-known diseases, schizophrenia is twice as prevalent as Alzheimer’s and five times are prevalent as Multiple Sclerosis. After 10 years from initial diagnosis, only 25% of people completely recover and 10% die, usually due to suicide. People with schizophrenia have a 50 times higher risk of committing suicide than the general population and about 40% attempt suicide at least once. About 6% of schizophrenics are homeless, 6% live in prison, 5% live in hospitals and 25% live with family

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