EungiSCHIZO


 * 1.9.09: will edit later if I have time**

Insulin shock therapy is a treatment in which the patient is injected with large doses of insulin to produce comas. According to the film, A Beautiful Mind, the main character, John Nash, had to receive this treatment in order to handle his schizophrenia. In addition to antipsychotic medicine, John eventually stopped hallucinating but was force to undertake the side effects of the drugs and once medication was abruptly stopped, hallucinations began to return and everything went back to as it was. It is true that this therapy does calm down the patient, but it is certainly not a reliable treatment for schizophrenia. The movie basically focused on how John was able to overcome his condition because he believed in his heart and ignored his imaginary friends. But certainly, to be able to overcome a mental illness by oneself without medication is not an easy thing to do. But compared to the other methods such as entering a psychiatric hospital and receiving treatments that just subside the illness, doing what John was able to do is much more effective. While insulin shock therapy may be necessary during times of emergency in which the individual has no control over themselves, it should not be the only method as a viable clinical treatment.
 * 1. Was insulin shock therapy a viable clinical treatment?**

As many critics state, the movie itself was fictious and was not completely according to the true story of John Nash. If all schizophrenic patients could be like him and be able to overcome their condition without medication just by ignoring their hallucinations and believing in their heart, then schizophrenia would already have been cured by now. The movie helped portray just how much of a nightmare a schizophrenic patient lives in and it certainly didn't look like a simple situation with a clean cut answer. It's extremely difficult to overcome a condition that seems so real, so life-like. You would have to deny the life that you had lived in, give up your hallucination friends, and accept the fact that your ill. As Alicia stated, "I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible." John Nash was a genius with a miraculous story about functioning normally in a society with schizophrenia. Though many factors may have contributed in helping him through difficult situations, like his wife Alicia, it was John who expressed such determination and belief, a rare case in the society we live today.
 * 2. Was John Nash an unusual case, or do you think that many schizophrenic patients can be taught to function in society with without medication?**

Insulin shock therapy deals with the hormone insulin which was tested and proven to reduce anxiety, nervousness, termors, agitations, and more of patients. Because schizophrenic patients express aggressive outbursts and extremely nervousnessness to their surroundings in which they cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not real, this method helped him be able to control himself and his thoughts. But when he returned home, he had lost his relationship with his wife and his intellectual capacity. Now, he wasn't able to 'see the answers' which drove him absolutely nuts. Insulin shock therapy does change schizophrenic patients 'less argumentative, less hostile, and less aggressive,' it has side effects that include falling consciousness of the brain and used to be life-threatening before. This method somehow seems as if the unfortunately diagnosed patients are forced to lose their personalities during the process, even if it does not cure the disease.
 * 3. What are the dangers and/or advantages of this type of treatment (re: insulin shock therapy)?**

During the 1960s and 1970s, two main treatments for schizophrenia were: insulin shock therapy (ICT) and synthetic chemical chlorpromazine (CPZ). When these two were introduced, people focused mostly on the brain's electrical activity and the ICT showed considerable change in the brain's activity after a prolonged coma. But considering how CPZ was safer in reducing signs of schizophrenia compared to ICT, ICT units closed during the 1962 in United States. Today, most schizophrenic patients use prescription of antipsychotic drugs in order to handle their schizophrenia but we still do not have the cure for the condition.
 * 4. What is the difference between the treatment of schizophrenia in 1960-1970 and today?**

The various types of chizophrenia include: paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, residual (DSM-IV-TR), post-schizophrenic depression, hebephrenic, and simple (ICD-10). (According to the movie, Nash developed paranoid schizophrenia). The worst case of schizophrenia might be the disorganized type for it is a combination of both thought disorder and flat affects. Paranoid schizophrenia are mainly of delusions and hallucination without affective flattening, disorganized behavior, and thought disorder and other types only deal with either a specific action or minor symptoms. Basically, it is a combination of all symptoms of schizophrenia in which other types focused only on separate parts. The least worst would be simple schizophrenia because psychotic episodes are not seen but only the development of negative symptoms are visible. Psychotic episodes would be the main evidence that the person has schizophrenia but without violent, noticeable actions, the person might be able to live through since others will probably not be able to recognize the patient.
 * 5. What are the various types of schizophrenia? Which would you consider the worst case to have? The least worst? Explain why for each.**

Today, the main treatment for schizophrenia patients is prescription of antipsychotic drugs. Today, insulin coma therapy is not being used in the West while electroshock convulsive therapy is used simply as a relief of severe psychiatric illness. Also, lobotomy relieves agitation of patients usually of sever obsessive-compulsive disorders. However, none of these treatments are cures for schizophrenia, failing to control psychosis, and patients become 'therapy resistant.'
 * 6. What treatments are being pioneered today for schizophrenia?**