How to Understand Schizophrenia

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Transcript Hi. I’m Dr Jeanie Tse and I’m a psychiatrist. I work at the Institute for Community Living, where I’m the associate chief medical officer. ICL is a not-for-profit agency in New York City serving over 10,000 people with serious mental illness in their families. At ICL, I see patients at the Guided Center of …

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Transcript I think it depends on what type of job you’re going for. But, at the same time, there shouldn’t be much fear behind it, being honest about a disease that just has to have some type of dialogue connected to expressing it to anybody, even a job, even a career. I have a career …

Transcript Ways to avoid relapses. You definitely want to keep away from people who may cause a mental trigger, or a person, place, or thing. Know your limitations ahead of time, about what sets you off. For instance, specific family members in my family trigger my disease. It just drives me up a wall that …

Transcript I think self care plays a big part in it. Proper rest, doctors, school, education is good, going to college, having a trade. Once you’ve established some sense of self-esteem, then one can go back into a course of getting off of disability, or having a job that compliments your disability, or Social Security …

Transcript Psychiatric hospitalization is recommended when people are in imminent or immediate danger of hurting themselves or others in some way. So, if someone with schizophrenia is having suicidal thoughts, having a lot of hallucinations, or hearing voices telling them to hurt themselves and they feel they can’t manage it, then that’s a good time …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeannie Tse, and I’m here to answer the question, “Are people with schizophrenia responsible for their actions?” This is a complicated question and, truthfully, whether people can be held responsible for their actions varies within people, depending on what symptoms they’re experiencing at the moment of the alleged crime. And among people, …

Transcript If you’re a person with schizophrenia and you’re having a psychotic episode, well, the first thing to ask yourself is, do you think you’re at danger of hurting someone or hurting yourself. If you are, then the answer is, call 9-1-1, get help for yourself right away. If that’s not the case, and for …

Transcript Many people grow up with a parent who is schizophrenic or meet their parent later on after reunifying with them because they weren’t able to care for them because of their schizophrenia. As an adult, trying to support your parent with schizophrenia, it can sometimes be not an easy task. We have a lot …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to answer the question, “How do you support your spouse with schizophrenia?” Because schizophrenia starts to set in around the ages of 25 to 35, many people get married before they discover that they have schizophrenia, or they discover their spouse has schizophrenia. And so, it can …

Transcript We’re talking about not just children, obviously, who are under 18, but your child throughout their lifespan if they have schizophrenia. I have come up with four Ls of supporting your child with schizophrenia. They are: Learn, listen, link up, and love. The first one is to learn. Learn about the disorder. Understand that …

Transcript I have learn, listen, and link up. So, the first is to learn about what schizophrenia is. Know that it is a disorder of brain development, that it’s genetic, that it’s nobody’s fault, and what the symptoms are, what are the signs of relapse, what are the things that trigger schizophrenia. And to learn …

Transcript I am Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to speak with you about the question, “What are a baby’s chances of inheriting schizophrenia?” The general population risk of schizophrenia is about 1 percent. So, one in 100 babies is going to develop schizophrenia. But, if you have first degree relative with schizophrenia, so your mother, …

Transcript For a long time, we’ve known there is an association between birth month, generally a winter birth, in the months of February and March especially, and the development of schizophrenia. So, there’s been all kinds of thoughts to why that might be. But, most of the research right now is centered around viruses. Viruses …

Transcript When schizophrenia was first described by Krepplin, he did call it dementia precox, which gives the idea that there is cognitive decline over time. That’s held up over the years. We do see a slight decline over time. This change in cognition tends to be more persistent and treatment-resistant than some of the positive …

Transcript People with schizophrenia are usually not violent. A very small minority of violent acts that occur are caused by people who have schizophrenia. Like anybody, if you are afraid, you’re more likely to act out in a violent way. People who have schizophrenia sometimes have paranoid delusions where they feel people are out to …

Transcript – Jeanie: We’re here to talk to you about substance abuse and schizophrenia. Over 50 percent of people who have schizophrenia experience substance use or abuse at some point in their lives. And it generally leads to more negative outcomes including homelessness, incarceration, violence, and sometimes suicide. So, it’s a serious issue for people …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to talk with you about schizophrenia and suicide risk. People with schizophrenia are eight times more likely to attempt or commit suicide. In fact, five percent of people with schizophrenia die by suicide, and 20 to 40 percent will attempt at some point. So, it’s a serious …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, here to talk to you about schizophrenia and its relationship to smoking. We know that about 80 percent of people who have schizophrenia smoke, which is far higher than the general population, where it’s more like 20 percent. And so, a lot of people have looked at the reasons why …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse. I’m here to talk to you about life expectancy and schizophrenia. The bad news is that people with schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses, like bi-polar disorder and depression, have a risk of dying 25 years earlier than the general population on average. And what we know is that they’re …

Transcript There have definitely been a lot of different alternate and nutritional treatments tried for schizophrenia, but none have been shown to be effective in treating the positive and negative symptoms of the disorder reliably. And so, those are delusions and give people false beliefs about things that are happening to them, including paranoid delusions, …

Transcript The most important thing to look for when you are looking for a psychiatrist or a treatment provider is to find someone that you trust, someone that you feel like you could talk to about what’s going on and be really honest with. Someone who will be responsive to your requests and your symptoms. …

Transcript Anti-psychotic medications are very useful and have helped many people with schizophrenia to lead healthy and productive lives by taking care of some of the symptoms, including delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking, disorganized behavior, and negative symptoms, or lack of motivation that may come with schizophrenia. However, they don’t come without side effects. I’m going …

Transcript I think that when we approach the treatment of schizophrenia, one of the first and foremost things to make sure of is, does that person have the very basic necessities they need to get better? I should say trust is one of them. Being able to have a trusting relationship with the treatment provider …

Transcript To start, we should say that ECT has a very bad rap from movies, such as “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, where it’s portrayed as being a fairly abusive form of treatment. But, in reality, today it is still practiced in safe hospital settings where there is anesthesia present, and we use muscle …

Transcript There are a number of therapies that are being tried in schizophrenia. The most evidence for effectiveness on both the positive and the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, so the delusions and hallucinations and the lack of motivation and lack of affect in schizophrenia, the large majority of the research supports cognitive behavioral therapies as …

Transcript Like with any therapy, the most important aspect of therapy is the therapeutic relationship between the person and their therapist. And so, that element of trust, that element of willingness to engage and interact is important. So, the first job of a therapist is to engage the person in a trusting, working relationship. That’s …

Transcript So, how do medications for schizophrenia work? Well, there are a couple of main mechanisms that we are aware of. One is dopamine blockade, and so we know that many of the medications, especially the older ones, are good at blocking the dopamine in parts of the brain, the part we call the mesolimbic …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to talk to you about the prognosis or expected outcome for people with schizophrenia. The prognosis is very variable so some people do very well and some do not do so well. We know from the international study of schizophrenia that at least half of people have …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to talk to you about how to treat schizophrenia. I think the first thing that’s important in the treatment of schizophrenia is for the person to have someone that they trust to talk to about the symptoms and their experience, as well to talk about their goals …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to talk to you about schizophrenia and the brain. So there are a couple of things that we see in brain development for people with schizophrenia. One area we have learned some things about is the neurotransmitters, or the chemicals in the brain that are involved in …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to talk to your about the differences between male and female schizophrenia. So, males are 1.4 times more likely to have schizophrenia than females, so it’s slightly more likely. And what we see is that, in males, schizophrenia tends to start around the early twenties, where in …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to talk to you about how schizophrenia is diagnosed. There’s no lab test or radiological X-ray test for schizophrenia. The way we diagnose is using a clinical interview and also information from other people that might know a person to know whether they have the symptoms and …

Transcript Can schizophrenia be prevented? Well, what we know is that there is a genetic basis for schizophrenia. So, if you have a family history of schizophrenia you’re more likely to have it as well, although the risk is still small if you have a family member. So, that part can not be changed; your …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse. I’m here to talk to you about how environment may play a role in schizophrenia. We know that part of the risk for schizophrenia is not just genetic; it also comes from your life experiences. What we know is that if a person has been traumatized, either through childhood abuse …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse. I’m here to speak with you about mental illnesses that are often confused with schizophrenia. There are many different illnesses that can cause what we call psychotic symptoms. Those include delusions, feeling paranoid, that people are out to hurt you, or feeling grandiose, feeling that you are maybe more important …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to speak to you about myths about schizophrenia. The first myth that I’m going to talk about is that schizophrenia is rare. In fact, one percent of the population has schizophrenia, which makes it more common than things like juvenile diabetes, for instance. So, it’s fairly common …

Transcript Schizophrenia is a disorder of brain development and our research tells us there is a genetic basis to schizophrenia. So, what we know is if you have an identical twin who has schizophrenia then your chances of developing schizophrenia are 50 percent, so half and half. If you have a first-degree relative, your parent …

Transcript We know that there is a genetic basis for schizophrenia, which is a disorder of brain development. And so, if you have a family history of schizophrenia you’re probably more likely to have it. But, the risk is still small. If you have an identical twin who has the same genes as you and …

Transcript In a small minority of people who have schizophrenia, it starts not at the usual age of between 25 and 35 but, instead, around the 40s. There’s also a very late-onset schizophrenia that tends to start around the 60s. This is more frequently occurring in women, and around the post-menopausal period, so after they’ve …

Transcript The symptoms of schizophrenia generally develop between the ages of 25 and 35. It tends to be towards the earlier 20s in men and towards the later 20s and early 30s in women. There are also people who develop it very late, in the 40s to 60s, and that tends to be more women …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to tell you about the symptoms of schizophrenia and the criteria for diagnosis. There are five main symptom areas in schizophrenia that we look at. One is delusions, which are fixed false beliefs that are not shared by other people in the culture. So, those can include …

Transcript Schizoaffective disorder is a disorder that is basically schizophrenia with also depression or manic episodes as well. So, schizophrenia, first of all, is a brain disorder that affects the development of the brain so that people’s thinking and behavior are affected. The main symptoms of schizophrenia include delusions, where people have fixed false beliefs …

Transcript Hi. I’m Jeanie Tse, and I’m here to talk to you about what schizophrenia is. Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that affects about 1 percent of the population. It’s a disease like other diseases. There are changes in the development of the brain that affect how people think, how people perceive things, and affect …