Schizophrenia, A Simple Guide To The Condition, Diagnosis, Treatment And Related Conditions

Schizophrenia,

A

Simple

Guide

To

The Condition,

Diagnosis,

Treatment

And

Related Conditions

By

Dr Kenneth Kee

M.B.,B.S. (Singapore)

Ph.D (Healthcare Administration)

Copyright Kenneth Kee 2018 Smashwords Edition

Published by Kenneth Kee at Smashwords.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated

To my wife Dorothy

And my children

Carolyn, Grace

And Kelvin

This book describes Schizophrenia, Diagnosis and Treatment and Related Diseases which is seen in some of my patients in my Family Clinic.

(What The patient Need to Treat Schizophrenia)

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader.

If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Introduction

I have been writing medical articles for my blog: http://kennethkee.blogspot.com (A Simple Guide to Medical Disorder) for the benefit of my patients since 2007.

My purpose in writing these simple guides was for the health education of my patients.

Health Education was also my dissertation for my Ph.D (Healthcare Administration).

I then wrote an autobiolographical account of his journey as a medical student to family doctor on his other blog: http://afamilydoctorstale.blogspot.com.

This autobiolographical account A Family Doctor’s Tale was combined with my early A Simple Guide to Medical Disorders into a new Wordpress Blog A Family Doctor’s Tale on http://kenkee481.wordpress.com.

From which many free articles from the blog was taken and put together into 800 eBooks.

Some people have complained that the simple guides are too simple.

For their information they are made simple in order to educate the patients.

The later books go into more details of medical disorders.

The first chapter is always from my earlier blogs which unfortunately tends to have typos and spelling mistakes.

Since 2013, I have tried to improve my spelling and writing.

As I tried to bring the patient the latest information about a disorder or illness by reading the latest journals both online and offline, I find that I am learning more and improving on my own medical knowledge in diagnosis and treatment for my patients.

Just by writing all these simple guides I find that I have learned a lot from your reviews (good or bad), criticism and advice.

I am sorry for the repetitions in these simple guides as the second chapters onwards have new information as compared to my first chapter taken from my blog.

I also find repetition definitely help me and maybe some readers to remember the facts in the books more easily.

I apologize if these repetitions are irritating to some readers.

Chapter 1

Schizophrenia

"I have schizophrenia. I am not schizophrenia. I am not my mental illness. My illness is a part of me."

– Jonathan Harnisch

Schizophrenia is hearing voices, not doing voices.

- Maria Bamford

If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

-Thomas Szasz

What is Schizophrenia?

Schizophrenia is a complex mental disorder characterized by symptoms involving:

1 .Personality

2. Thinking non logically

3. Emotionally unstable responses,

4. Behaving abnormally in social situations

5. Tendency to withdraw from reality to a private personal world

Schizophrenia is a medical disorder that makes it difficult to tell the difference between what is real and not real.

It also makes it difficult to think clearly, have normal emotional responses, and function normally in social situations.

Schizophrenia is a medical disorder of the mind that affects how the patient thinks, feels and behaves.

Its symptoms are described as positive or negative.

‘Positive’ symptoms

These are unusual experiences.

Many people tend to have them from time to time and they do not become a problem.

In schizophrenia, they tend to be much more intense, problematic, pre-occupying and upsetting.

1. Hallucinations

A hallucination happens when the patient hears, smells, feels or sees something - but it is not caused by anything (or anybody) around the patient.

The commonest one is hearing voices.

They sound utterly real.

They normally seem to be coming from outside the patient, even though other people cannot hear them.

The patient may hear them coming from different places, or they may seem to come from a particular place or thing.

Voices can talk to the patient directly or talk to each other about the patient – it can be like over-hearing a conversation.

They can be pleasing but are also discourteous, critical, obnoxious or just plain irritating.

The patient may try to ignore them, talk back to them – or even shout back at them if they are particularly loud or irritating.

The patient may feel that he or she has to do what they tell the patient, even if the patient knows the patient should not.

The patient may wonder if they are they coming from hidden microphones, from loudspeakers, or the spirit world.

Voices are not imaginary – the patient really does hear them - but they are created by the mind.

Scans have shown that the part of the brain that light up when the patient hears voices is the same area that is active when the patient talks, or forms words in the mind.

The brain seems to mistake some of the thoughts, or ‘inner speech’, for voices coming from outside the patient.

The patient can also hear voices in severe depression.

They are likely to be simple repeating the same negative or critical word or phrase over and over.

The patient can also hear voices which do not interfere with the life.

They may be pleasant or not very noisy or only occur from time to time.

These voices do not normally call for any special treatment.

Other kinds of hallucination

The patient may see things that are not there, or may smell or taste things that are not there.

Some people have discomfort or painful sensations in their body or feelings of being touched or hit.

Delusions

A delusion happens when the patient believes something and is completely sure of it while other people think the patient has misunderstood what is happening.

It is as though the patient sees things in a completely different way from everyone else.

The patient has no doubts, but other people see the belief as mistaken, unrealistic or strange.

If the patient does try to talk about the ideas with someone, the reasons do not make sense to them, or the patient cannot explain – the patient ‘just knows’.

It is an idea, or set of ideas, that cannot be explained as part of the culture, background or religion.

It may suddenly dawn on the patient that at last the patient really understands what is going on.

This may follow weeks or months when the patient has felt that there has been something wrong, but that the patient could not work out what it was.

A delusional idea can be a