Coping tips for Schizophrenia - Dr. Sulata Shenoy

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder, a neuro psychiatric ailment which afflicts a small part of population but can have very serious and debilitating consequences. In schizophrenia the person is unable to distinguish between fact and fantasy, reality and falsehood. The person may be experiencing voices and seeing things which other people are unable to see and may be misinterpreting facts and also be leading a highly dysfunctional life along with a lot of emotional, behavioural and social upheavals that constantly impact or impair him as well as those surrounding the person. Schizophrenia is one of the disorder that is early recognised and the person would be very often institutionalised because at that time there were no known treatment for schizophrenia except for putting them behind bars so that they don’t harm themselves or they don’t harm others. Nowadays we are finding lot of treatable conditions in schizophrenia and very rarely one find that the person needs to be institutionalised or even there are many halfway homes if once the severity of the symptoms of schizophrenia are addressed then the person can go back to his or her own normal surroundings. Schizophrenia needs treatment. There are many good antipsychotic medications now which will address the symptoms and the person will lead a stress free life. The symptoms of schizophrenia are of three types. The first is what are the prevalent and existing changes in the person that one can see. There may be changes in behaviour, the person may be experiencing hallucinations, he/she may be delusional i.e. the person may feel that something may be happening or the person is being controlled by someone else and he/she may be having persecution and paranoid thoughts and this may even lead the person in his/her own self defence or in response to those thoughts to act out in very bizarre ways and the person may sometimes be restrained from acting out in such ways. Secondly the person may be withdrawn, there is a definite lack of personal hygiene or taking care of oneself or going for a job or taking care of one’s own people. Thirdly there is a definite loss of cognitive insight like memory, judgement, the higher executive functioning, ability to perform tasks, ability to understand and carry out series of instructions, all these could get impaired. So the person would end up not being able to manage himself or herself and be not in a position to take care of the needs of daily living. In schizophrenics the period of anger, aggression ,anxiety, depression etc would continue. Initially it was thought to be a split personality and that is why the term schizophrenia. But that is a totally different personality disorder and schizophrenia is one of the known psychotic behaviours. These can be properly treated nowadays. We have to follow up with the competent authority, take the prescribed dosages and medications on time. If one is a patient and knows a patient who is near and dear to you one needs to follow some coping techniques with the disorder i.e. one needs to read up a lot and gain knowledge, know which situations one can feel comfortable and do some lifestyle modification like eating and sleeping well, in socialising, holding a responsible job or position in behaving in appropriate manners that we all seek other peoples to behave. So these are the coping techniques to follow but this should be done from a competent authority such as a neurologist or a psychiatrist who would be the main person in taking care of schezophrenics as of today.