Case
Buy-uc is 21-years-old. He recently graduated from a reputable university finishing his 4 year college course. He lived in another city and he was doing good in college. As a matter of fact, he was a consistent varsity player credited for his contribution on the university's success in the field of sport from his first year up to his last year in the university. He was holding down a job order as a clerk staff in one of the municipalities after a month of his graduation. But then he suddenly began to change, became paranoid and was acting out in bizarre ways. First, he became convinced that the policemen he saw were "spying" on him and his co-workers were talking behind about him or always looking at him. Then he wandered and got lost so his family and neighborhoods went looking for him.
From there, things got worse. He became suspicious to other people and kept asking everyone in the family if they love him. Then he started hearing voices telling him someone wanted to kill him and that he wanted to be avenged. He took out the knife and wanted to kill the puppy he grabbed outside the house. Later on, he was hospitalized for a few days for he went back to normal. He began again to change during his follow up check up in the hospital when he saw other patients acting strangely. Because of that, the doctor prescribed him a stronger dosage of medicine which he argued he did not need them. He took the medicine for a while but decided to stop. He was reckless at home and easily lost interest whenever he started one like singing while playing the guitar. However, after 6 months, he slowly showed a great improvement and seemed to have recovered after few more months. He is currently active in joining a training.
I am uncertain if the case above is considered as Schizophrenia even if the patient showed some of the signs and symptoms. I am confused if it was really schizo or a depression. The patient above was diagnosed (as written on his medical chart) with this kind of disorder and yet I am not fully convinced so I tried asking other professionals that could help me understand this.
According to a Psychiatric Doctor, it takes years to come up with this diagnosis. There is actually no test that definitively indicates that someone has schizophrenia. So the concerned medical/social practitioner needs to study the patient's back ground from his medical, family and mental health information including his daily routines etc.
I tried to make my own reading hoping to rest my mind about the case.
Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, mental disorder and characterized by symptoms of thought, behavior, and social problems. Some common early warning signs are social withdrawal, suspiciousness, deterioration of personal hygiene, inability to show emotion, inappropriate laughter or crying, depression, insomnia or oversleeping, odd statements, forgetfulness, extreme reaction to criticism and strange use of words or way of speaking.
Causes of Schizophrenia:
Current research proposes that schizophrenia is caused by
- Genetic vulnerability coupled with environmental and psychosocial stressors, the so-called diathesis-stress model.
- Prenatal which is well established that obstetric complications are associated with an increased chance of the child later developing the disorder.
- Infections like viral infections (influenza) in childhood or in the utero
- Drugs like Cannabis, Amphetamines and other stimulants , Hallucinogens
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