Hello everyone, my second presentation is about schizophrenia.
Every year 1,5 million people worldwide are diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is a mental illness which has periods called ‘psychotic episodes’. During a psychotic episode, a sufferer shows disturbing changes in behaviour. They may seem very cold and unemotional, using few facial expression, and say strange things in a slow, flat voice. They may lose all interest in life and spend days doing nothing at all, not even washing or eating. These distressing symptoms are shocking for family members who, of course, remember what the sufferer was like before the illness.
During a psychotic episode there may be hallucinations. Hearing voices that other people do not hear is the most common type of hallucination. The voices give orders and carry on conversations. Sometimes the voices swear and make threats.
Someone with schizophrenia may have delusions, believing for example that they are famous, a historically important person, or that people on television send them special messages.
People with schizophrenia may not think logically. They are isolated because the conversation with them is very difficult, so they have no one to communicate with.
It is relatively common for schizophrenia sufferers to commit a suicide – 10 per cent of people with schizophrenia (especially younger adult males) kill themselves. Violence and threats against other, on the other hand, are not symptoms of the illness.
There is medication that can reduce the symptoms, but it often has bad side effects, and some sufferers discontinue treatment because of this. Although many sufferers can continue to lead a relatively normal life, it has been estimated that no more than one in five individuals recovers completely, and most will require long-term treatment.
Here some tips how to behave and talk with a schizophrenic.
We do not yet know the cause of schizophrenia. Researchers have looked at links with genes, with brain development, with infections before birth, and with traumatic life events.
Question to movie 1: What do you think the schizophrenic looks like? Would you know that the person in the movie has schizophrenia if she did not not say it?
Do you know anybody with this illness or maybe you met such people?
Write your opinions on how you imagine a schizophrenic person.
To be honest i never heard about schizophrenia, but i am sure everyone of us we do have sometimes some weird psycho behaviour!!! I guess the persone who was giving the interview on the first video clearly looked to be with a kind of symtoms because she had repeted constantly the information about it and that people told her that " no you never have schizophrenia coz you speak so normal ".
ReplyDeleteIn the life i may met people with such symtoms but in general i do not have any good knowledge to recognise them but by looking the behaviour of the woman in the video, i seen quite of few of people like it who are very changeable during the conversation so apears to be kind of symtoms on this case.
I think the people who have been for quite long time stressed or has been down for verious situations can be suffered from it. Also my opinion is that if people live for long time in the sadness than can be effected from the kind of illness.
I guess is enough from my point of view!!!!
I have never thought about schizophrenia and people who suffer because of it. After this film I know that it is really hard to find people who is ill. This woman looks like normal person. She talks normal, she behave normal, she is quite normal! After she told about illness I can get know that she is ill. It is hard to say if I know someone ill for schizophrenia. For me after this film people who has schizophrenia looks the same like healthy people. Now I think I know people who are ill for schizophrenia but I don't know about their suffer and maybe even they don't know about their illness. For me schizophrenia person should be unnormal in behave, screaming, talking diffrent things, crying without reason, etc. Hard to say because I don't know what are real symptoms of this disease.
ReplyDeleteI can agree with biqkaj. I also think that there is no healty people, there are only ones without diagnosis ;) I imagine that most of the mental disorders come from the fact that some mechanism in our head fails and lets loose all the inner life that goes in our head.
ReplyDeleteThe schizophrenic person generally have audiatory halucinations. I can bet that most of you had a situation when you heard conversation or any kind of strange noise when you were falling asleep. I think mental disease is a situation when some blocking mechanism fails and such things can happen when one is fully awake.
An illness is a sad thing that can happen, we should always show sympathy to the sufferers. It could happen to anyone.
The woman on the first movie looks and talks quite normal to me. Looks like drugs work well on her because it's not noticable for me.
ReplyDeleteI have never met anyone with schizophrenia, at least noone admitted that they are ill.
I can imagine that a ill person would look like John Nash (a american mathematicial) played by Russel Crowe in "A Beautiful Mind" movie. Disturbed, hearing voices, seeing things and sometimes hyper active.
@biqkaj, Michał Kąkol - yes you are right, "normal" is just term defined by somebody which really does not mean anything. Probably all of us would define normal behaviour in other way. So here is my question for you - what do you think about current teenagers behaviour? Do you think they are normal? For me the way they behave, they look like is not normal, but from their point of view it could be quite normal as a lot of them behave the same/similiar way
ReplyDelete@Adam Młodziejowski - exactly as you said the woman in the movie is well treated and behave quite normal. But it is not always like this.
@Artur Gwiazda - typical symtopms are that such people have disturbed contact with reality, concetration, speech and thinking disorder.
Generally, there are five subgroups of schizophrenia:
1. paranoid type - hallucinations and dellusions occur, but disorganized behaviour or thought problems are not present
2. disorganized type - thought disorder and flat affect are present together
3. catatonic type - strong states of excitement
4. residual type - no hallucinations, but basic hygiene activities are handicapped, and person izolate from society
5. Undifferentiated type - lack of cryteria of other types, weak interpersonal adaptation
In Poland, affects around 400 000 people with schizophrenia. It seems to me that it is worthwhile to learn more about this little-known disease thanks to this article. You will never know if anyone of our loved ones do not get sick from schizophrenia.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, appropriate treatment and support for nearest patient can hope for a better life.
I don't know (or I just don't realize they are) people with this illnes and I wasn't interested in this topic, but my stereotype vision of schizophrenic is person who talks loudly to someone who doesn't exist or to itself, who makes weird moves and can be aggresive. i didn't know I could be not able to recognize if person is ill or not.
ReplyDeleteI agree there are no people, especially when medicine is developing, but you know, there are more and less important diseases. I think schizoprenia is quite serious buisness.
I've know about schizophrenia thanks to movie "A Beautiful Mind" (http://www.filmweb.pl/Piekny.Umysl) it's story about man with paranoid schizophrenia. It was really beautiful movie for me and really liked it.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that person with schizophrenia look normal as us and it'll be hard to fin which person have schizophrenia if you don't know symptoms.
And I never met someone with this disease.
What do you think the schizophrenic looks like? Would you know that the person in the movie has schizophrenia if she did not not say it?
ReplyDeleteI didn't imagine before people with schizophrenia. I think if they are taking their medicine they look like any other people. Schizophrenia is just an illness that needs to be treated. If it is under psychiatrist's control person with schizophrenia can live like we all.
Do you know anybody with this illness or maybe you met such people?
I don't know anybody with this illness.
Write your opinions on how you imagine a schizophrenic person.
It is hard to answer for me, because I have never had anything in common with schizophrenia. Maybe person with this illness can behave like John Nash Jr in 'A Beautiful Mind' movie (that is my first thought).
What do you think the schizophrenic looks like? Would you know that the person in the movie has schizophrenia if she did not not say it? Do you know anybody with this illness or maybe you met such people? Write your opinions on how you imagine a schizophrenic person.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have ever met a person with this illness. At least nobody had a 'I'm a schizophrenic' tag on himself. As most of people wrote, I would picture such a person based on my vision from movies such as 'A beautiful mind'. According to the plain description of a 'residual type' schizophrenic - some fellow IT students could be perceived as such (;)) so I think plain text without visualized aids is not good enough.
Video 1 show that such a person looks 'normal'. To be honest, I thought she would change her behavior dramatically towards the end of the film but she didn't. And unfortunately, my knowledge about schizophrenia didn't get any better. On the other hand, who would want to post material showing his or her mental incapability?
I also probably didn't meet anyone with this illness, and thought that the person in the video will change her behavior noticeably. I have seen a few other mental disorders. This is horrifying, when a person, known before as a completely healthy starts to develop strange behaviors, hears voices, fails to remember things, people's faces. Still, for such cases like schizophrenia there is no 100% effective cure, we even don't exactly know how the human brain works.
ReplyDeleteI don't know anybody with this illness and I didn't imagine before people with schizophrenia. I agree with Artur that a person diagnosed with schizophrenia may experience hallucinations etc. but she looks the same like healthy people. Schizophrenic is seriously problem, people with that illness live in different world.
ReplyDeleteSchizophrenic people can take medicines. It will help them live like a normal person. As many readers said before, it is sometimes impossible to find if person is schizophrenic.
ReplyDeleteSchizophrenia is a serious disease, difficult to detect and hard to heal up ... I do not know anyone with this disease, it is hard to explain how this disease may look like, because it have a lot of varieties and classification.
ReplyDelete