Bhopal: When we see a person talking alone, we tend to think that the person is possessed by some super natural power. Similarly, 24-year-old engineering student, Prabhas (changed name) stopped going to college. He stopped communicating with friends and meeting new people. His friends often found him talking alone and behaving strangely. His behavior worried everyone and when his family consulted a psychiatrist, he was found to have schizophrenia disorder. Within three months of treatment, positive changes were seen in him. Presently, he is getting treatment and is in better health.
The case of Prabhas is nothing unusual, in fact about one per cent people suffer from this disorder out of which 65 per cent do not get access to treatment and there is also a 2-3 years of gap in the treatment of schizophrenia patients.
Person suffering from this disorder develops delusions and hallucinations. The patient hears voices because of which he/she is seen talking alone. The patient hallucinates people sometimes harming others and sometimes harming self.
According to, psychiatrist Dr Satyakant Trivedi, the early symptoms of schizophrenia are not communicating properly, living alone and not laughing, confused thoughts, trouble in concentrating, delusions, hallucinations, etc. He said that sometimes patient also gets suicidal if left untreated and if proper treatment is provided then the patient can live a normal life. “The biggest hurdle in the way of treatment is the unawareness among people about mental health and the myths associated with mental health. In case of schizophrenia, people consider it gods curse or supernatural power or just anything. The disease might not be completely curable but it can be controlled to a large extent by treatment”, he said.
The causes of disease can be genetic or family history, neurotransmitter imbalances. “Cannabis is also resulting into triggering schizophrenia disorder and this has been proved in a research. In fact, I had few patients who were having delusions and hallucinations and I later found that they had cannabis”, said Dr Trivedi. He further added that the involvement of family and families psycho education is very important in treatment of such patients apart from antipsychotic group medication. The patient has to be given some type of social skill training or vocational training as a part of rehabilitation.
