Mental Disorder

9 Pages 2291 Words

Schizophrenia is a disorder that can effect anyone. It is the greatest disorder that effects teenagers. When someone is effected by the disorder it is not just that one person that has to learn to deal with it, the families of the patients must also learn to deal with it. There are many possible causes for the disorder with many doctors believing that there is more than one cause. What has been thought as the main cause for many years is a chemical imbalance in the brain. This could be an imbalance in the number of neurotransmitters and/or an imbalance in the amount of dopamine. Stress is not thought of as directly causing Schizophrenia, but often makes already present symptoms worse. Some doctors feel that Schizophrenia might be the result of a slow acting virus since the symptoms can be delayed many years after the first infection. Another possible cause for the disorder is a genetic disposition. This has yet to be proven but it is thought of as a likely cause s!
ince children who have a parent with the disorder have a ten times greater chance of developing the illness than children who have abnormal parents. If both parents have the disorder the chance of their off spring having the disorder jumps to forty times that of of an off spring with normal parents.
Some times as equally as important as finding what causes a disease is finding what does not cause a disease. It is said that Schizophrenia is: not caused by a domineering mother and/or a passive father, not caused by childhood experiences, poverty, or not caused by the feeling of guilt or failure. People who have schizophrenia can be divided up into three equal groups: those who only have one episode in their entire life, those who have continual episodes but live normal lives between them, and a third group who have never ending symptoms. The symptoms that define an episode of schizophrenia can generally be described as deterioration from a previous level of functioning. The ...