What is schizophrenia?

is taking resperidone for schizophrenia a good idea?

Scizophrenia is NOT Multiple Personality Disorder and the two should not be confused. Risperidone is an excellent choice for medication and personally one of the better anti-psychotics currently in use in my opinion.

The following exerpt from my previous posts explains what Schizophrenia is:

Schizophrenia is an illness that is biogically based. You inherit a predisposition for the disorder which is generally triggered by stress. The typical age of onset is in the late teens to early 20's (the college years).

The general characteristics include both "positive" (acute) symptoms and "negative" (residual) symptoms and there is a prodromal phase, acute phases and residual phases. There are a lot of technical aspects to the correct diagnosis which I won't elaborate, but in general the characteristic signs are any combination of the following:

"Positive" signs:
-Hallucinations (primarily auditory, less often visual and rarely tactile, gustatory or olfactory)
-Delusions (fixed or variable, paranoid/persecutory and grandiose, somatic, erotomanic, nihilistic, etc.-they run the gamut of various types, "ideas of reference" where a person believes that random events have a special meaning meant just for them, delusions of thought control or thought insertion)
-Disorganized Thinking ("Loose associations" where thoughts are strung together with little cohesiveness, "perseveration" where a person gets stuck on the same thought or theme over and over like a needle that skips on a record and keeps replaying )
-Disorganized Behavior (catatonic excitement, catatonic stupor which is like posturing-usually only seen in extremely severe cases and rarely any more)
-Poor Concentration and inability to focus on a thought, sometimes "blocking" where a thought becomes interrupted in midstream)
-Disorganized speech (incoherence, rambling or circumstantial speech-lots of fancy terms like echolalia, word salad, verbigeration, clanging)
-Inappropriate Affect (inappropriate giggling, tears, silliness, etc. that is out of context to the situation)

"Negative" signs:
-social withdrawal and preference to isolate
-flattened or blunted affect (emotional expression)
-Amotivation (lack of motivation, apparent apathy)

There are 5 distinct types:
1-Paranoid: most organized thinking of the types-prominent delusions and hallucinations
2-Disorganized (Hebephrenic): Grossly disorganized thinking and behavior predominates and inappropriate affect
3-Catatonic: catonia, rarely seen any more
4-Undifferentiated: no clear predominant symptoms
5-Residual: Primary negative symptoms-often seen as a "burned out" version where there are fewer positive or acute symptoms

Schizophrenics often are able to maintain jobs in low stress environments with minimal interpersonal demands once they are stabilized. Others may work in sheltered employment with support and guidance. Social skills are greatly impaired and schizophrenics often have great difficulty reading the social cues most of us take for granted and thus they misjudge or misread social situations which reinforces their tendency to self-isolate as do paranoid symptoms. Intimacy is exceptionally difficult as well and they rarely form close or deep bonds with others, making it difficult to function as husbands and parents. They tend to appear aloof and distant emotionally, although often this is a way of coping with feelings of being overwhelmed by other people's emotional expression and demands.

Medication often serves to either completely control the acute symptoms or dampen their impact, but tends to have minimal impact on the negative symptoms. The side effects are often horrendous and intolerable and this leads to a familiar pattern of stopping medication, beginning the trend of repeated courses of decompensation leading to re-hospitalization.

The ineffectiveness of meds and the emotional blunting they can cause often leads to attempts to self-medicate with alcohol or marijuana (usually) which often increase symptoms.

Schizophrenics often perceive the world in unigue and idiosyncratic ways which can cause them difficulty in complying with social norms and expectations, even simple things like generally accepted standards for cleanliness or hygiene. It can also lead them to exceptional creativity and expression in arts and abstract disciplines. Examples of famous schizophrenics are the poet and artist, William Blake (I have many of his works in my office for inspiration) and John Nash, the Nobel Prize winner featured in the movie "A Beautiful MInd". Source(s): 20 years as a psychotherapist

A split personality disorder I am ok and so am I
asking a specialist is proberbly a better idea, and i would go together
Which one of you is asking?

(sorry!)

.

schizophrenia is a mental illness where the person has strange thoughts that do not reflect reality. For example they might think that their friends are planning to steal things from them, when there is actually no such plan. This type of thinking is called "psychosis". In addition they do not see that these thoughts are irrational - they lack insight.

Some people suffering from the illness have hallucinations - seeing things or hearing voices. Sometimes those voices command them to do bad things, which is why a small number of schizophrenics are a danger to themselves and others.

resperidone is an excellent medication for the disease, and yes it is good to take. I was on it for a short period as it is also used for severe depression.
It just zonks you out a bit - tis good stuff.
Schizophrenia [ meaning "split mind" ] is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality and by significant social or occupational dysfunction. A person experiencing schizophrenia is typically characterized as demonstrating disorganized thinking, and as experiencing delusions or hallucinations, in particular auditory hallucinations.

Although the disorder is primarily thought to affect cognition, it also usually contributes to chronic problems with behavior and emotion. Due to the many possible combinations of symptoms, heated debates are ongoing about whether the diagnosis necessarily or adequately describes a disorder, or alternatively whether it might represent a number of disorders. For this reason, Eugen Bleuler deliberately called the disease "the schizophrenias" plural, when he coined the present name.

Diagnosis is based on the self-reported experiences of the patient, in combination with secondary signs observed by a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist or other clinician. No laboratory test for schizophrenia exists. Studies suggest that genetics, early environment, neurobiology and psychological and social processes are important contributory factors. Current psychiatric research into the development of the disorder often focuses on the role of neurobiology, although a reliable and identifiable organic cause has not been found. In the absence of a confirmed specific pathology underlying the diagnosis, some question the legitimacy of schizophrenia's status as a disease. Furthermore, some propose that the perceptions and feelings involved are meaningful and do not necessarily involve impairment.

The term schizophrenia translates roughly as "splitting of the mind", and comes from the Greek 蟽蠂委味蠅 (or schizo, "to split" or "to divide") and 蠁蟻萎谓 (or phr膿n, "mind"). Despite its etymology, schizophrenia is not synonymous with dissociative identity disorder, also known as multiple personality disorder or "split personality"; in popular culture the two are often confused.

Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia are highly likely to be diagnosed with other disorders. The lifetime prevalence of substance abuse is typically around 40%. Comorbidity is also high with clinical depression, anxiety disorders, and social problems, and a generally decreased life expectancy is also present. Patients diagnosed with schizophrenia typically live ten to twelve years less than those without the disorder, owing to increased physical health problems and a high suicide rate.

Resperidone is good idea in a way because it reverses all the 'negative symptoms' of schizophrenia such as affective blunting, withdrawal, and low motivation. These newer medications all appear to primarily influence dopamine receptors but they also appear to affect serotonin receptors that deal with frontal lobe functions
Schizophrenia.com
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/psychop...