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Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder or group of psychotic disorders that cause an individual to lose touch with reality. It is marked by severely impaired reasoning and emotional instability that can cause violent behavior. Symptoms usually develop in men in their late teens or early twenties; in women in their twenties and thirties. In rare cases, symptoms of Schizophrenia can appear in childhood.
Symptoms of Schizophrenia can include:
Research conducted in the past decade indicates that schizophrenia is due to a genetic predisposition and environmental stressors early in a child's development (during pregnancy and birth, and/or early childhood) which lead to subtle alterations in the brain that make a person susceptible to developing schizophrenia. Additional environmental factors and stresses later in life (during childhood, adolescence and young adulthood) can either damage the already vulnerable brain further or lessen the expression of neuro-developmental defects and decrease the risk of schizophrenia.
Visit the Health Education Matters website to take an online screening to see if you or a loved one might have this disorder.
Links of Interest:
