Schizophrenia is the most common mental illness for today. It can be characterized by a different spectrum of manifestations and tends to be chronic. It is a brain disorder that manifests itself in various forms of disturbance of the psyche and human behavior.
Symptoms of schizophrenia in children
Schizophrenia in children is characterized by severe psychotic symptoms, which include:
- various forms of delirium;
- catatonia;
- mental disorders;
- disorganized behavior;
- muffled or on the contrary, too pointed emotional manifestations.
Earlier, the term "childhood schizophrenia" was used to refer to other disorders that had nothing to do with adult schizophrenia, with the exception of chronic symptoms in early childhood. Schizophrenics were also mistakenly called children with simple borderline symptoms or autism .
Children with schizophrenia often suffer from hallucinations, paranoia and delirium. Until recently, scientists were trying to develop some kind of special system for diagnosing schizophrenia in children, because it was believed that similar symptoms in children may be due to another previously unknown disease. In spite of this, the similarity of these two forms of the disease in adults and children has already been proved.
Passing from one phase of the disease to another, children can be sure that they have super-strength or that they are followed by absolutely unfamiliar people. During a psychotic attack, patients behave unpredictably, they become aggravated by suicidal tendencies and the level of aggressiveness increases.
Teen Schizophrenia
Teenage or, as it is also called, the hebephrenic form of schizophrenia is observed at the senior school or youth age. The disease initially manifests itself by such symptoms as:
- acute headaches;
- insomnia;
- excessive scattering.
Further, before schizophrenia begins to progress in adolescents, it can take quite a long time, up to several years, so the patient's relatives often can not even roughly name the period of the onset of the disease. The main sign of schizophrenia is foolishness with unreasonable joy and increased motor activity. As you understand, it is very difficult to diagnose such signs in childhood and adolescence, because all children are active and have a violent imagination, so when you have at least the slightest suspicion, you need to turn to specialists.