I believe that most of you are familiar with John Nash’s battle
with schizophrenia. (For those who are not, I recommend
watching “A beautiful mind“). The Nobel-prize-winning
mathematician who has successfully but not easily reintegrated
himself back into reality. His story, as exceptional and
contradictory as it is, remains indeed a positive and beautiful
model in its outcome and shows that a long way is still ahead in
order to make more similar results.
Bibliography:
• Rang, H. P., and M. Maureen. Dale. Rang and Dale's
Pharmacology. Edinburgh: Elsevier/Churchill Livingstone, 2012.
• Laura WeissRoberts - Jinger G.Hoop - Thomas W.Heinrich -
Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins - 2010
• Joshua T. Kantrowitz, MD Daniel C. Javitt, MD, PhD. "Glutamate:
New Hope for Schizophrenia Treatment. Research on
Glutamatergic Dyfunction May Lead to Therapies Targeting
Negative and Cognitive Symptoms." Current Psychiatry. Apr.
2011. Web
• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:
DSM-IV-TR. Arlington, VA, American Psychiatric association,
2013.
• http://www.schizophrenia.com/
Living as a schizophrenic is a great burden because
Many challenges still exist and are present especially on a social
level. The attempt to integrate the patient into society remains
a main one. It requires not only a supportive and encouraging
family, but also a more understanding environment. For many
years, the only way to deal with this disease was to con�ine
these patients to asylums, where they were treated not in the
most humane way. Moreover, the �irst-line therapy at the time
consisted of electroshock therapy, psychosurgery (frontal
lobotomy), and insulin coma. These therapies were extremely
controversial because they can cause permanent damage and
sometimes lead to death, which is extremely unfortunate given
that schizophrenia is an illness that mainly touches young
adults.
It is true that the discovery of neuroleptics has led to a drastic
decline in the number of schizophrenics detained in asylums,
and rendered the use of those extremely disabling measures
mentioned above a thing of the past. This being said, the
pharmacological treatment of schizophrenia did not make it
more socially acceptable and there still is fear and
misunderstanding related to it. Sadly, this prejudice has been
observed in the medical �ield, and has led to a bad follow-up of
many schizophrenics for their non-psychiatric conditions. The
most prominent one being cardiovascular disease for it remains
the �irst cause of death among them. It is, in fact, the reason why
a schizophrenic person lives thirty years less than the average
individual.
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