Schizophrenia: A Brain Disease

Being a brain disease the effects it has on thefor delusions the impression that someone or
patient are very drastic. Even daily things becomesomething wants to heart them. When trying to
difficult or like in the case of personal hygienecorrect this involuntary actions in the patient, it
unmanageable and neglected. The behavior of thehas been found that the treatment is met with
patient changes drastically, the person becomingresistance and defensiveness.
very irrational and chaotic. The brain being in thisIn the case of schizophrenic patients the brain is
way affected, thinking , feeling, understanding andseriously out of order, thus for them the reality
consciousness itself are altered in very differentthat their brain presents to them is as real as the
and negative ways. Thinking coherently,one of a normal person in the real world. This in a
expressing emotions appropriately and interactingway makes the patient be trapped in a sort of
with others normally becomes a seriously difficultvirtual reality created by his own brain. The
task for patients. Family life is also affected,hallucinations and delusions are very serious for
members having now to provide and care for thethem and because of this they try desperately to
sick person to. On an emotional level theyunderstand what is going on around them and
sometimes become distressed and overwhelmedwhy those things are happening to them. Because
by this, on top of witch they have to now seethey are presented with their own reality, actually
their loved one become a seriously ill patient of aliving in the one that is real is very difficult making
chronic disease.interacting between them and normal people very
One of the most defining features ofhard.
schizophrenia is psychosis. This happens when theThis loss of reality is very difficult for both the
chronicle ill patient losses touch with reality ( thepatient, who is trying desperately to make sense
ability to differentiate between real and imaginaryof the chaos that his brain has created and he is
things is damaged). It is not uncommon fornow faced with, and for the family because they
schizophrenia patients to suffer from hallucinationshave to watch helplessly how their loved one is
or even delusions; most often in the cases oflosing touch with reality and becoming a problem
hallucinations we have the hearing of voices andfor the rest of them.