Schizophrenia: Alternative medicine terms defined. Holistic health theories defined. |
Schizophrenia
is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease.
It is a psychosis characterized by personality and thought disorganization, and it affects an estimated
one percent of all people.
Eugene Bleuler, who coined the word "schizophrenia," defined it as a group of related disorders. Psychiatrists often view it as a syndrome: A group of symptoms that together characterize a specific disease. Schizophrenia is difficult to define and easily misunderstood. Although symptoms may vary widely, people with schizophrenia frequently have difficulty recognizing reality, thinking logically, and behaving normally in social situations. Symptoms in schizophrenia are defined as either "positive" or "negative." Positive symptoms are psychotic symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized behavior. Negative symptoms are the tendency toward a restricted emotional range, inexpressive speech, and the inability to initiate productive activity. Although schizophrenia affects men and women with equal frequency, the disorder often appears earlier in men, usually in the teens or early twenties, than in women, who are generally affected in the twenties to early thirties. Related Reading: |
|
