Schizophrenia

             Today, when people hear the word schizophrenia, they think of John Nash and Andrea Yates. John Nash was the subject of the Oscar-Winning film A Beautiful Mind. He became a mathematical genius and won a Nobel Prize, but during young adulthood he became very affected by schizophrenia and lost his academic career. He struggled for years before recovering. Andrea Yates suffers from depression and schizophrenia and is known for drowning her five children in a bathtub. She thought she was saving them from the devil and she is now in prison.
             Their experiences are alike and different from other schizophrenic people. About one percent of the world's population is affected by the illness and most are disable through adulthood. most have below-average intelligence and when the symptoms set in their I.Q. declines further. Only a small amount ever have a successful career or become employed. Less than half ever marry or have children. Fifteen percent stay in state or county mental health facilities for long periods of time, and another fifteen percent end up in prison for small crimes. About sixty percent live in poverty and one in twenty of them become homeless. Because they have little social support, more people with schizophrenia become victims of violent crime rather than committing them.
             Medications for schizophrenia exist but they don't always work. The most used treatment, called antipsychotics, stop all symptoms in only twenty percent of patients. About two thirds get some relief but they stay symptomatic for the rest of their lives. The rest show no significant response to treatment.
             Another obstacle in the way of treating this disorder is the theories about drug therapies. Brain cells communicate with other neurons by exciting or slowing them with neurotransmitters. In the past, theories focused on the neurotransmitter dopamine, but in the past few years, we have learned that dopamine levels are just...

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Schizophrenia. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 20:16, March 28, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/13154.html