Variety of Mental Disorders and Their Features - Essay Example

Variety Of Mental Disorders And Their Features Introduction Schizophrenia is a chronic condition accompanied with a severe brain disorder; it is characterized by a combination of delusions, hallucinations, distorted thoughts and behavioral changes. Contrary to people believes of split personality, it’s a disruption of human emotions and thinking. Schizophrenia appears in people in their late teens or throughout their twenties and usually affects men more than women. It is rarely cured rather it’s treated (Pilowsky 2002). The mental disorder is the most serious mental condition where about 1 person per each 100 people will experience schizophrenia in their life time (Krueger et al 2005). Diagnosis is usually at the age of fifteen years to thirty five years in all genders but men are more prone to the disorder. Doctors describe schizophrenia as a psychotic illness due to the fact that the person suffering from it does not know how to distinguish their own thought from reality. The severity of this condition is different for every single person suffering from it. Certain people may have episodes of it throughout their lifetime, while some have it only once. Schizophrenia is a general term used to describe a variety of mental disorders. They vary from paranoid, catatonic, residual and undifferentiated schizophrenia (Pilowsky 2002). The symptoms of this disease include hallucination; other negative symptoms include delusions, catatonia or immobility, disorganized thinking or speech. Successful treatment of schizophrenia depends on a long term regime of medical drugs which are antipsychotic that helps reduce positive symptoms of psychosis in about 7–14 days. Psychosocial and support therapies, will assist in reducing and maintaining delusions and hallucination to a minimum, but it does not help one in finding a job, social relationship, coping with others and may result to poverty, homelessness, unemployment, drug abuse which are major factors that are associated with the mental disorder. Not unless the patient is involved in support group therapy, family members support and maintain the medication plan without fail then he or she will delay the onset of schizophrenia (Andreason 2001). There are various causes of schizophrenia in minority people between the ages of 18- 25 years. They include genetics where genetic composition is attained from parents to child. Sometimes if one twin has it, the other has a higher chance of developing the condition. There are various environmental factors that cause schizophrenia; a person may develop the condition due to stress .Others causes include brain development issues; this can be evident when certain brain cells do not develop to the normal expectation. Birth complications can cause schizophrenia by the availability of the virus in the womb during implantation, gestational diabetes or pre eclampsia can also cause the condition, asphyxia and emergency caesarian section (Shamir 2002). Review of schizophrenia amongst minorities of age 18-25 The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the schizophrenia in 18 – 25 year old male in minorities. The main focus is majorly on review that surrounds the condition amongst males in the minority groups of ages 18- 25 males. The environment is a major contributory factor, with stress and drug abuse being top of the reasons why peoples between the ages of eighteen and twenty five in the minority communities suffer from schizophrenia. The causes of the stress amongst the minority groups include unemployment, poverty, racism, family disparities, poor treatment of diseases and social isolation. Additionally, some of the mentioned problems contribute to more problems that may result in even more problems amongst the minority age groups mentioned (Shamir 2002). For example in the event that one is poor, no medical attention is undertaken when one is sick or when administering of treatment of diseases is done poorly , especially in pregnant women, this may result in poor brain development amongst offspring borne of this groups. Other nonspecific stressors for example prenatal difficulties like intrauterine starvation, perinatal complications and or viral infections also may cause development of schizophrenia amongst people. Efficiency Disparities on the Treatment of Schizophrenia The treatment for schizophrenia is lifelong. They include antipsychotic drugs like Aripiprazole (Abilify), Fazaclo ODT) Olanzapine (Zyprexa) Paliperidone (Invega) Quetiapine (Seroquel) Risperidone (Risperdal) Ziprasidone (Geodon), Clozapine (Clozaril). All these drugs vary from one patient to another depending on cost, risk and benefits. The treatment aims at helping curb the symptoms of the disease other than treating the disease this because the root causes of the disease have never really been established. Other forms of treatment include psychotherapy (Shamir 2002). There are various disparities that may result to poor management of this treatment of schizophrenia amongst people they include race/ethnic background, poverty levels and area or location of patience and many more. Racism is also deep rooted in some areas of the United Kingdom and United States; this has caused serious social isolations amongst the minority groups who eventually become addicts of substances or drugs that are very harmful to their health or that have eventualities like schizophrenia (Corrigan 2004). Tobacco dependence is amongst the highest causes of this condition. Racism is also a major disparity when it comes to treatment and management of schizophrenia. Family disparities and violence are a major contributory factor too. The violence especially amongst Africans, African Americans and Latinas and Asians contribute to the development of the disease amongst the people between the ages of eighteen and twenty five amongst them as they will have reached a breaking point in trauma of continuous exposure to violence, feuds in families and civil and tribal wars. This affects them as some men fall into bouts of depression that remain untreated and thus causing more pain amongst them. Males are more prone to tobacco dependence than women. Furthermore the side effects of the drugs that treat schizophrenia may cause the patient to stop using them (Moreno 2007). Good examples of the side effects include restlessness, gaining of weight and Parkinson disease. The condition is prevalent amongst the minority groups because of the factors that have been mentioned above (Corrigan 2004). The treatments for schizophrenia vary depending on the extent of the disease. There are various treatments include psychotherapy like group therapy also known as self-help groups, rehabilitation for example they would go through vocational and job counseling, problem social skills training, solving support and education for financial management. Family education also plays a serious role in helping the schizophrenic patient, as the family members are taught how to handle the schizophrenic member of their family. Individual psychotherapy is also very helpful to the patient. The patient is allowed to disclose emotions and feelings to the psychotherapy in order to curb the condition symptoms (Wilson 2007). There are various disparities on the treatment of schizophrenia in the United States. According to studies in (Wilson, Barnes et. al) 2007, an approach used was majorly logistic regression models to test the association between hospital visits amongst and sociodemographic variables to medical mamgement of schizophrenia. According to the study found in Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal (2004) on it was noted that the visits by the non-Hispanic black patients suffering from schizophrenia was rather higher than that of non-Hispanic whites who apparently had medical insurance which reduced their chances of being hospitalized for schizophrenia. This is clearly indicates efficiency of disparities treatment approaches at national level as per the study that was carried out. Finally, it important to note that schizophrenia is not treatable and the kind of medication that is administered is used for a life time by the patient. It is important that the parent to the child that is diagnosed with the disease accept the condition of their child. That way early treatment will be administered and reduce the symptoms of the disease. Additionally, it is important to treat schizophrenia early as it may delay the onset of the disease on the patient. The longer time is taken before the treatment of this disease, the greater the effects of it on the patients’ work, study, majorly their interaction with other people and the quality of their lives (Wilson 2007). References Andreason, N. (2001). Brave new brain: Conquering mental illness in the era of the Genome. New York: Oxford University Press. Barak, Y., Shamir, E., & Weizman, R. (2002). Would a switch from typical antipsychotics to risperidone be beneficial for elderly schizophrenic patients? Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, 22, 115-120 Corrigan, P.W. (2004). Target-specific stigma change: A strategy for impacting mental illness stigma. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 28, 113-121 Jones HM, Pilowsky LS (2002). Dopamine and antipsychotic drug action revisited. British Journal of Psychiatry.; 181:271–275. Moreno, B., Arroyo, B., Torres-Gonzalez, F., de Dios Luna, J., & Cervilla, J. (2007). Social predictors of out-patient contact in schizophrenia patients. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 42, 452-456 Wilson, R.S., Barnes, L.L., Kreuger, K.R., Hoganson, G., Bienias, J.L., & Bennett, D.A. (2007). Early and late life cognitive activity and cognitive systems in old age. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 11, 400-407. Read More