Review of Literature on Schizophrenia

Introduction

Schizophrenia is a prolonged and severe mental disorder that affects the cognitive abilities of a person. This disorder mostly appears in the late adolescent stage or the onset of early adulthood. Its symptoms are hallucinations, delusions and mental difficulties associated with the brain. Besides, schizophrenia has negative symptoms such as lack of inspiration. The other symptoms of schizophrenia are emotional and cognitive. The emotional symptoms of this disorder include aggressiveness while the cognitive symptoms include lack of concentration and poor memory. It impacts the behavioral activities of the individuals. This mental impairment affects the thinking and the emotions of the affected person. There are four types of schizophrenia that is catatonic, paranoid and undifferentiated schizophrenia. This disorder is caused by several factors such as genetic inheritance (Cooke & Matarasso, 2005, 245). The second factor that may contribute to this disorder is the equilibrium of chemicals such as dopamine in the brain. Also, environmental factors such as stressful experiences may trigger schizophrenia.

Literature search

Schizophrenia disorder can be treated through the administration of medicines such as risperidone and Seroquel to the patients. The disease is known to affect almost one percent of the population. The disorder has a severe impact not only on the patients but also on the other individuals. The expenses for management and control of the illness are very high in society. Cognitive impairment is the basic symptoms of schizophrenia. The cognitive impairment has to do with the mental capabilities of an individual which ranges from memory, lack of attention and poor reasoning ability. G.H.M. Pijnenborg, The British Psychological Society. The main reason for this essay is to search and show an account of the way the author gathered literature for review articles.  Nursing and allied health databases such as ‘CINAHL’ for this literature search was used.  The article was over two thousand after the search, it was now reduced to 500 after the screening, it now been reduced to 5, due to the author focused only the location in the United Kingdom, using the English as the only language. The author selected the main point in the topic, that is, ‘Effect of Schizophrenia on daily life’. The impact on individual and family. This keyword were reduced to search for the relevant articles, the search dates of the articles was from January 2010 to 2019 in order to show current articles. The speed of processing data among people with schizophrenia is very low. Besides, patients with schizophrenia have poor memory long term memory. The psychosocial life of these patients is also very poor. They are not interactive and they like staying alone, they isolate themselves from the other people due to emotional withdrawal (Lysaker et al., 2011, 58) The patients with the social cognitive disorder may possess poor communication due to lack of interaction skills. The poor communication stems from the aggressiveness of the schizophrenia patients. Moreover, schizophrenic patients face a lot of discrimination from the other individual thus they develop low self-esteem and aggression. 

The patients with schizophrenia have a high mortality rate as compared to the other population. The main cause of death among schizophrenic patients is suicide, heart disease, and cancer. The antipsychotic treatment administered does not fully treat cardiovascular diseases but it minimizes the rates of death among patients with cardiovascular diseases. Almost a third of the death in patients with schizophrenia we as a result of unnatural causes. The psychotic disorders increase the mortality rate of individuals. Schizophrenia disorder can be addressed effectively through the administration of antipsychotics. The disorder can be rectified when it is discovered at an early stage. The use of medicine and psychosocial treatment. The patients may also be given cognitive behavior therapy to enable them to shape the reasoning, emotions, and behavior of an individual with a schizophrenic illness. This therapy consists of practical self-help programs. The cognitive behavior therapy combines two forms of therapy which include behavioral and cognitive therapy. The use of these forms of therapy enables patients to gain good thoughts and habits.

References

Bikson, M. (2014).  ‘Understanding tDCS effects in schizophrenia: a systematic review of clinical data and an integrated computation modeling analysis’. Expert review of medical devices, 11(4), 383-394.

  Brady, N., McCain, G. (November 29, 2004) "Living with Schizophrenia: A Family Perspective" OJIN: The Online Journal of Issues in Nursing. Vol. 10 No. 1.

P Cronin, F Ryan, M Coughlan - British journal of nursing, 2008 Undertaking a literature review step- by -step.

Annotated Bibliography

Brunoni, A. R., Shiozawa, P., Truong, D., Javitt, D. C., Elkis, H., Fregni, F., & Bikson, M. (2014). Understanding tDCS effects in schizophrenia: a systematic review of clinical data and an integrated computation modeling analysis. Expert review of medical devices, 11(4), 383-394.

Source: Journal article

Content: Research report

 The schizophrenia is the most prevalent disorder with a prevalence of about 0.5 to 1.5 and a chronic cause all over the lives. The symptoms of schizophrenia can be classified as impairment in sociability, abulia and emotional blunting. Patients with schizophrenia have cognitive dysfunction thus these patients have less functionality in carrying out the daily tasks (Brunoni et al., 2014, 385). The patient also has a poor quality of life and comorbidities which include depressive symptoms, substance-related disorders. These patients are also at a higher risk of facing cardiovascular illness and suicidal risks.

Koolaee, K. A., & Falsafinejad, R. M. (2014). Effects of communal living Skills on improving Activities of daily living of male patients with schizophrenia. Journal of Schizophrenia Research, 1(4). 

Schizophrenia is an example of a disability disorder caused by psychiatric illness. The parent suffering from this illness have abnormal behaviors and many health impairments. The patient with schizophrenia disease have difficulties in interacting with the other members in the society. Moreover, these patients are disadvantaged in that they can’t take care of themselves. They are also depreciated by vocational skills. These patients due to their mental disorders face a hard time socializing with other people (Koolaee & Falsafinejad, 2014, 46). However, these patients can be helped by being administered with antipsychotic medicine. The patient with this mental illness often faces tremendous challenges since they are isolated from the rest of society. The community can devise a mechanism to help patients with schizophrenia to live better lives.

Moritz, S., Veckenstedt, R., Andreou, C., Bohn, F., Hottenrott, B., Leighton, L., & Schneider, B. C. (2014). Sustained and “sleeper” effects of group metacognitive training for schizophrenia: a randomized clinical trial. Jama Psychiatry, 71(10), 1103-1111’

Source: Journal article

Content: Research report

 Many of the patients who have schizophrenia illness have neurocognitive disorders. They are also very quick to make the final judgment of everything. The cognitive aspects are associated with the pathogenesis of the impairment. They are also known to alter the functional results of the patients. The schizophrenia is followed by neuropsychological disadvantages which are distributed over many cognitive functions. The patient who has a mental disorder have incredible problems in their cognitive perception (Moritz et al., 2014, 112). Social cognitive disorder is the main element that foretells the less functional result in the disorder.

Sato, S., Iwata, K., Furukawa, S. I., Matsuda, Y., Hatsuse, N., & Ikebuchi, E. (2014). The effects of the combination of cognitive training and supported employment on improving clinical and working outcomes for people with schizophrenia in Japan. Clinical practice and epidemiology in mental health: CP & EMH, 10, 18.

Source: Journal article

Content: Research report

Schizophrenia is a mental disability that is strong contributed due to ethnic factors. However, the studies have not shown whether patients from different ethnicity have different brain disabilities. Patients with schizophrenia have poor abilities in performing neurocognitive tasks. The neurocognitive test battery showed that the patients who had the disorder low processing speed. They also took a very long time to switch the tasks and to focus on one task. The verbal communication of these patients is easily distinguishable from the rest of the individuals. Patients with mental disorders have increased paranoia and a lot of cognitive disabilities. These people suffering from schizophrenia have are very aggressive and they possess a blaming attitude toward the others. The diagnosis of schizophrenia is linked with demonstrable changes in the structure of the brain and transformation in dopamine neurotransmission (Sato et al., 2014, 28). The change in dopamine neurotransmission results in delusions and hallucinations.

Pijnenborg, G. H. M., Withaar, F. K., Brouwer, W. H., Timmerman, M. E., Van den Bosch, R. J., & Evans, J. J. (2010). The efficacy of SMS text messages to compensate for the effects of cognitive impairments in schizophrenia. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 49(2), 259-274.

Source: Journal article

Content: Research report

Patients with cognitive diseases have a cognitive disability which affects their mental abilities. However pharmacological measures have been put in to place to restore this patient to normal functioning. Although, despite the measures that have been put in to place to rectify the cognitive impairment. Other alternative methods are used to help the patients recover from schizophrenia (Pijnenborg et al., 2010, 270).

Reflective Account of Nursing

My reflective account will feature the patients with schizophrenia. This reflective report will focus on the patient called Judy, whom I met with during my placement visit. This is a fictitious name to maintain confidentiality. The model proposed by Driscoll (2000) is used for this reflective report. Driscoll cycle contains three questions such as ‘what?’, ‘so what’ and ‘Now what’ (Burnard, 2000).

What/who?

Fifty patients diagnosed with schizophrenia with minimum time, regarding to an individual’s mental and social sphere. RK Solanki, (2008)  On my placement, I met Judy who was diagnosed with schizophrenia 10 years ago. Her symptoms started when she was 28 years old with occasional depressive episodes and hallucinations. She does not have any friend and she spend most of her time in her room. She speaks occasionally but incoherently. She tends to avoid keeping eye contact when she talks. She does not participate in any activity and seems uninterested most of the time. She does not observe personal hygiene and significantly lacks orientation to space and time. Her daughter visits her occasionally at her home. She was admitted into the psychiatric ward during the clinical placement because her aggressive behavior was out of control. Judy was encouraged by the mental health nurse to improve on her social interaction by getting involved in community activities.

So what?

 It will consider effective methods of controlling and preventing mental illnesses. Many of the patients with mental illnesses were found to have different levels of depression. Thus my argument is whether all depressed patients have mental illnesses. Many hospitals have focused so much on eliminating mental illness without clearly providing means through which they can maintain good mental health. The researchers should aim at finding the root cause of illnesses in the laboratories. The public ought to be educated on how to maintain healthy minds and bodies. Less attention should be given to mental illness but more attention needs to be given to mental health. Mental illness is a result of poor mental health. Parents who are very aggressive due to stress and depression usually bore children who have mental disorders due to the transmission of genes. The discussion that should be emphasized is concerning the emotional and mental health (Jones & Jones, 2016, 36) I had a chance to visit a hospital and examine the patients who had mental health challenges. I was involved in the clinical practice where I had to take a physical examination with a mental health nurse, for five days. The patients with schizophrenia are given medication through the administration of medicine. This patient was treated psychologically by providing love and care.

Now what?

This recovery model in patient centered care has been around for over decade (Hummelvoll, Karlsson and Borg, (2015). Examining whether the schizophrenic patient is perceiving any voice is the first step in assessing whether the patient has hallucinations.  Participating and socializing with the patient with the mental disorders may help the patients to express their problem and the physicians can help the patients to recover (Cooke & Matarasso., 2005, 246) Helping the patients who are mentally affected by socializing with them can help to create the sense of worthiness in the patients thus the patients can increase their socialization skills. Speaking with the patients and listening to their views can enable them to develop listening and concentration skills. The concentration of the patients with schizophrenic disorder can be increased by drawing the pictures on a board and illustrating the pictures to them. This will enable them to focus on one thing on consistent bases. The cognitive activity of these patients can be increased by constantly motivating patients with a mental disorder. Judy was the first person diagnosed with schizophrenia I have ever came across. After the assessment and the diagnose by the mental health nurse and the consultant, I was able to understand better as a student nurse.

Conclusion

 Overall, schizophrenia has debilitating effects on the cognitive abilities of the patients affected. This illness affects all the levels of cognitive functioning of the individuals. Its lowers the concentration ability of an individual thus the person cannot focus on a single task at a time. The illness also affects the memory of the patients who possess it thus the victim of this illness has a difficult moment remembering the past events. The illness negatively affects the ability of a person to interact with others. The patients suffering from this illness can experience emotional withdrawal and they are very aggressive. The patients with schizophrenia can be assisted through medication and psychosocial treatment.

Reference List

• Cooke, M. and Matarasso, B., 2005. Promoting reflection in mental health nursing practice: A case illustration using problem‐based learning. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 14(4), pp.243-248.
• Gall, S.H., Atkinson, J., Elliott, L. and Johansen, R., 2003. Supporting carers of people diagnosed with schizophrenia: evaluating change in nursing practice following training. Journal of advanced nursing, 41(3), pp.295-305.
• Jones, A. and Jones, M., 2016. CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT. Reviewing depot injection efficacy in the treatment of schizophrenia. Nursing Standard, 30(33)...
• Lysaker, P.H., Buck, K.D., Carcione, A., Procacci, M., Salvatore, G., Nicolò, G. and Dimaggio, G., 2011. Addressing metacognitive capacity for self-reflection in the psychotherapy for schizophrenia: a conceptual model of the key tasks and processes. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 84(1), pp.58-69.
• Hummelvoll, Karlsson and Borg, (2015). ‘Revovery of person centeredness in mental services.’