Schizophrenia Treatment Critique - Coursework Example

Project Interview al affiliation Most people and families, societies we live in, work places and friends do believe that mental illnesses hardly occur in people they relate with everyday of their lives and most especially their loved ones. They are reluctant in accepting the possibility that mental disorders or illnesses are affecting their loved ones and they could live in this denial ignoring all the obvious symptoms of the same. Most families are however never prepared physically and emotionally to deal with the effects of such illnesses in their loved ones making them feel very vulnerable especially in decision making. Such decisions could include the commencement of medical attention. There is always no need to give up when such trying times come, it is important to remember the sick person needs all our love and support and they are able to get medical help. A mental illness or disorder is a condition that effects a mans reasoning, feeling or mind-set and may influence his or her capacity to relate with others and capabilities of being consistent in their daily functionality. There are many types of mental disorders some examples are dementia, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, depression, schizophrenia among others. Major symptoms that a person is most likely suffering from a mental disorder are frequent changes in their moods, delusional thinking or hallucinations, change in sleeping patterns, extreme fears, changes in personal habits and withdrawal from society. These disorders research over the years has shown that they are caused by many factors some of which include stress both at work and at home, genetic factors, environmental changes in and a change of our life style. Patients and families of patients have to learn to deal with each day as it comes and seek all possible avenues of counsel and treatment that could be available. This paper focuses on schizophrenia, how it can be diagnosed, its symptoms and how affected patients and families can deal with it, possible forms of treatment. We specifically focus on the movie Beautiful mind which focuses on Nash. The turnaround in this movie begins when Nash during a lecture sees foreign agents of the Soviet Union trying to attack him. He tries to run away from the lecture and this is where doctor Rosen is introduced in the Film. After giving Nash an Insulin shock just to take away the shock he is experiencing, Doctor Rosen takes him in for a clinical review. As they bring him into my office he is well dressed a perfectly fit professor in his eyes though he is clearly going through a mental psychological illness. (1) “It’s great to see you again in my office after the lecture this afternoon, professor. I am quite honored. Tell me more about why you were running away?” He appears quite disoriented as to where he could be and he is trying to take away something from his hand where he has the bandage from the insulin patch, disoriented behavior and thinking. He immediately starts looking around with lots of fear in him believing he is not in safety. He then after a thoughtful moment first talks and says that he believes he is being followed someone who is out to hurt him badly. It is the same foreign agents of the Soviet Union who nearly attacked me in the lecture hall. Nash, with me you are in absolute safety no need to fear I reassure him just to get him settled. He narrates that he can see Parcee his senior supervisor at the MIT being attacked. (2) “Parcee, you mentioned? Tell me more about him and your specific role at MIT Nash” “I was hired by the government to decode messages from newspapers and magazines in the Soviet Union as they are planning on the Second World War. I then deliver the messages in a secret box but I am always in fear going to deliver the decoded messages in the envelope as I am always being followed by people who want to hurt me. (3) “How about your education and career life Nash? You mind telling me something about it? ” “ I did work at the university as a mathematician. Owing to the pressure of publishing an article, one day during lunch with my course mates I got the idea of developing a woman as a game since I realized I we were all going to go after the brunette girls at the bar one or all of us would lose them. It was a great brilliant idea that somehow saw me marry my wife whom I really love.”(4) “Interesting colleagues you did have Nash” yes indeed. It was my roommate Charles who actually introduced me to Marcee and his beautiful niece. (5) It is very often that students have a lot of friends in college Nash. Looking at me in utter surprise then explains that he had told his friend Charlie that he did not quite like people and they never liked him too. I spent much of my time alone, explain Nash but I was quite satisfied by that, and gave me enough time to work on my game theories. (6) Doctor you know I met the niece to Marcee; a friend to Charles, that girl never grows old (7) “Did you just mention that she never grows old Professor?” “No I met her when she was Eight and she still is Eight years old.” (8) We all grow old Nash. “But don’t you think that is weird if she never grows old?” yes it kind of beats the odds of nature. (9) Relationships are often too hard to maintain Nash. It is usually an all compromise situation. Tell me more about your wife Nash? Looking very delighted and full of great joy, he explains how his wife means everything to him. Then he becomes suddenly dull and withdrawn. This quite draws my attention. (10) Maybe this was a little too much for the Day Nash; we should probably call it a day my dear. No Doctor, I just feel so bad about hitting my wife and baby recently. One day I nearly drowned the baby while bathing him. I hope my wife knows just how much I love her. Am sure she does Nash, no need to worry about that. Unless you do have anything you would like to know Nash, we sure will call it a day. Looking all satisfied, I ask the doctors helping me to put him the psychiatric ward on admission for treatment. He has delusions, hallucinations, suffers disoriented thinking and isolation all frequent and recurrent symptoms of schizophrenia. This is where Doctor Rosen describes it as schizophrenia to his wife Alice. Schizophrenia is a mental disability that affects a person’s ways of thinking, moods and behavior (Ming. T. Tsuang, 2011). Patients have a problem between distinguishing what is real and their hallucinations. Schizophrenic patients experience a lot of distress causing them to be withdrawn and very agile in their mood swings. They are very remorseful once they come back to their normal state of mind realize all that has been going on around them regarding their behavior while hallucinating. This disease often strikes between the ages of 15years to 35years and can be very hard to realize someone is suffering from it since the symptoms may take a long time in displaying themselves. A patient has got to at least have three or more symptoms to successfully be diagnosed with schizophrenia. These major symptoms that could have occurred more often in a month include hallucinations, incoherent speech and adverse negative emotions towards everything, delusions and hearing voices. It is very important once you realize this symptoms or a trend of such symptoms in a loved you seek quick medical attention as schizophrenia could respond to treat and often if treatment is started early. A very good example of a schizophrenic patient has been portrayed is the case of the American mathematician and Nobel Prize winner in economics, John Nash who worked at Princeton University and lived with paranoid schizophrenia after his mid thirties. His life has been focused on the film ‘A Beautiful Mind’. Russell Crowe is taking the part of acting as John Nash in this film, arrives at Princeton University in the early years of his life with a prestigious scholarship for mathematics. He suffers almost all the symptoms of schizophrenia that lead to his diagnosis which are portrayed in his hearing voices and seeing people, Parcher, delusions, inability to differentiate between the reality and his imaginary thinking. Viewers see that he is working under a lot of pressure while at the university to publish his own article and during a discussion with his friends he get the idea of a new concept of dynamics of governing which he publishes. Years later he then is called to join the pentagon in to help the government decrypt the communication code of the Soviet Union by checking abnormalities in the patterns of printing magazines. It is here that his delusional mysterious supervisor, William Parcher, first appears as a member of the United Sates Department of Defense. This was the first sign of schizophrenia that he suffered. He becomes very obsessed with the searching of these secret patterns in newspapers and magazines that he needs to decrypt and he eventually gets lost in this world. He however starts developing paranoia wherever he has to deliver the results of his finding in the secret mail box and he believes that he is always being followed. The detection of this first symptom of schizophrenia is very hard to detect since coupled with his job and intelligence no friends would hardly believe that he could suffer this disorder (Carol North, 2009). His delusional supervisor, Parcher, is actually a character that comes in the film and is quite sufficient in portraying that hearing of voices and visual characters in patients suffering from schizophrenia usually come and adjust to the current condition under which the patient finds himself in. in this case, Parcher, comes and fits in as a mysterious supervisor in John Nashes’ life making him just the right person to be there as he shows John the importance of his job to the government and country. This goes to show that he was suffering the grandeur delusion where he as a patient believed that, Parcher was very important to him. There are several types of delusions that schizophrenic patients suffer from (Vincent Mark Durand, 2010). These are; delusion of persecution where the patient believes that other people or things are after him for one thing or another, delusions of reference this is where a patient believes that a particular thing, example a billboard, a has a personal message to him or her, delusions of grandeur is where a patient believes that a certain thing, person or voice shows him the importance of what he is doing making him feel very important and delusion of control where the patient believes that his thoughts are being controlled by something on the outside or being taken away by someone else. John Nash actually does suffer all these four forms of delusion. Parcher was however the first significant sign of Schizophrenia in John Nash and since the delusion more sign did come up. In the film, he is asked out by a student Alicia Larde out for dinner and this is the thing that shows that despite the presence of suffering schizophrenia, patients can lead a normal life and establish relationships. He goes out for dinner with her and this friendship evolves into a romantic one. He later meets Charles and his niece, Marcee, and tells them about his involvement with Alicia. Charles really supports and encourages him to marry her. He ends up marrying Alicia and they both get a child. Charles and Marcee are also delusional people who have a lot of control on John and his decisions. He makes a decision here too based on his delusional characters. Alicia however has no idea that he is suffering schizophrenia. After witnessing a shootout between Parcher and the Soviet agents, Josh Nash develops a lot of fear for his life, another major indication that he has anxiety disorder and that they are contributing to his bizarre behaviors for example where he is called upon as a guest lecturer at Harvard university, he tries to flee during his lecture while trying to flee from the people whom he views as foreign agents sent to kill him. He punches Doctor Rosen terribly as he flees while he was trying to hold him back. It is then that after sedating him that Doctor Rosen informs Alicia of his condition. She also learns that Parcher, Marcee and Charles are his imaginary friends and family. Alicia is in denial but she quickly sets out to find the truth. She represents most of the families here as it is such a stigma from society and friends on schizophrenic patients. She decided to confront him but he too is in denial of the most oblivious signs that he could be a schizophrenic patient. She is faced by a very hard decision of what treatment he should undertake. This condition however puts a really huge strain on their relationship. In the film it shows him knocking Alicia and the infant baby off to the ground, thinking that he is trying to stop Parcher from hurting them. Schizophrenia has adverse effects on both the patient and his relations. Patients have an increased rate of suicide thoughts and are often prone to suicide owing to psychotic talks or when they are depressed. Most schizophrenia patients often use drugs and alcohol all in attempt to help ease the symptoms of their disease or to medicate themselves as often alcohol impairs bodily functions. They have a disruption in normal functions of the day for example bathing, taking meals and generally disoriented social behavior by withdrawing from crowds and people they are familiar with causing a lot of relationship problems especially for married couples. This disorder can be diagnosed medically by a doctor or psychiatrists by conducting a few tests and especially questioning your loved ones on your behavior, the patient’s family history of mental health problems. There are no medical tests that can be used to see if a patient is suffering from schizophrenia and when they do conduct tests, they rule out the possibility of other bodily infections and they could possibly ask for the patient to have brain scans which could help detect some things associated with schizophrenia (Allen Rubin, 2011). Doctors however use the presence of more than three symptoms in a patient for more than a month to successfully determine that he is schizophrenic. Such recurrent symptoms include delusion, hallucinations, disoriented speech, disorganized behavior and problems of the patient facing his daily work, activities and normal functions of life. Treatment and recovery from schizophrenia is a long life process and largely dependent on the patient. He has to accept his status, learn how to cope with the stigma that comes with such a disorder and learn to accept to undertake his medical therapy and daily medication. The medical treatment too requires a lot of help especially from family members and the society at large it is recommended that patients do need to make sure that you take your antipsychotics. It also requires that you build a very strong support system. Learn to trust your friends and family and allow them to know exactly what you are going through so that they can support you. The patient should learn to have a very healthy lifestyle by avoiding stress or learning to manage it, get regular body exercises, avoid alcohol and drugs and have healthy eating habits. The patient should also develop healthy sleeping habits and make sure that he gets enough sleep and avoid the use of caffeine. The patient should also try to find options that best suits him in terms of looking for a job that will keep the patient busy to avoid having a lot of interactions with his imaginary world, he should also try and get involved in community activities as this helps him get to socialize with members of the community and probably get to meet other people who are suffering from the same disease and maybe form a group where they can all interact and share experiences with each other. This gives the patient, comfort and knows that there are people in his community that are going through the same tribulations. There could also be the possibility of residential homes for people with schizophrenia and this helps the affected person to get medical help 24 hours for acute psychotic needs (Swerdlow, 2010).Patients with schizophrenia ought not to give in stigma and learn that even though they are sick they are socially acceptable and can undertake in all common functions like healthy persons. References Allen Rubin, D. W. (2011). Psychosocial Treatment of Schizophrenia. In Psychosocial Treatment of Schizophrenia (p. 298). John Wiley & Sons. Carol North, S. Y. (2009). Goodwin and Guzes Psychiatric Diagnosis. In S. Y. Carol North, Goodwin and Guzes Psychiatric Diagnosis (p. 76). Oxford University Press. Ming. T. Tsuang, S. V. (2011). Schizophrenia. In Schizophrenia (p. 1). Oxford University Press. Rao, J. a. (2014). Is Schizophrenia a Neurodegenerative Disease Evidence from Age-Related Decline of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor in the Brains of Schizophrenia Patients and Matched Nonpsychiatric Controls. Neurodegenerative Diseases . Swerdlow, N. R. (2010). Behavioral Neurobiology of Schizophrenia and Its Treatment. In N. R. Swerdlow, Behavioral Neurobiology of Schizophrenia and Its Treatment. Springer Science & Business Media. Vincent Mark Durand, D. H. (2010). Essentials of Abnormal Psychology. Cengage Learning. Read More