Schizophrenia Treatment at Behavioral Health Services at the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati

Fort Hamilton Hospital

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Schizophrenia

What Causes Schizophrenia?
Scientists still do not know the specific causes of schizophrenia, but research has shown that the brains of people with schizophrenia are different, as a group, from the brains of people without the illness. Like many other medical illnesses such as cancer or diabetes, schizophrenia seems to be caused by a combination of problems including genetic vulnerability and environmental factors that occur during a person's development. Recent research has identified the first genes that appear to increase risk for schizophrenia. Like cancer and diabetes, the genes only increase the chances of becoming ill, and do not cause the illness all by themselves.

How Is Schizophrenia Treated?
While there is no cure for schizophrenia, it is a highly treatable and manageable illness. However, people may stop treatment because of medication side effects, disorganized thinking, or because they feel the medication is no longer working. People with schizophrenia who stop taking prescribed medication are at a high risk of relapse into an acute psychotic episode.

Hospitalization. People who experience acute symptoms of schizophrenia may require intensive treatment including hospitalization. Hospitalization is necessary to treat severe delusions or hallucinations, serious suicidal thoughts, an inability to care for oneself, or severe problems with drugs or alcohol. It also is important to protect people from hurting themselves or others.

Medication. The primary medications for schizophrenia are called anti-psychotics. Anti-psychotics help relieve the positive symptoms of schizophrenia by helping to correct an imbalance in the chemicals that enable brain cells to communicate with each other. As with drug treatments for other physical illnesses, many patients with severe mental illnesses may need to try several different antipsychotic medications before they find the one, or the combination of medications, that works best for them.

Conventional Anti-psychotics were introduced in the 1950's and all had similar ability to relieve the positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Most of these older "conventional" anti-psychotics differed in the side effects they produced.

In the last decade new "atypical" anti-psychotics have been introduced. Compared to the older "conventional" anti-psychotics these medications appear to be at least equally effective for helping reduce the positive symptoms like hallucinations and delusions - but may be better than the older medications at relieving the negative symptoms of the illness, such as withdrawal, thinking problems, and lack of energy.

Current treatment guidelines recommend using one of the atypical anti-psychotics as a first line treatment option for newly diagnosed patients. However, for people already taking a conventional antipsychotic medication that is working well, a change to an atypical may not be the best option. People thinking of changing their medication should always consult with their doctor and work together to develop the most safe and effective treatment plan possible.

Psychosocial Rehabilitation. Research shows that people with schizophrenia who attend structured psychosocial rehabilitation programs and continue with their medical treatment manage their illness best. Professionals work with clients to address problems effectively, to make sure medications are being properly taken, and to meet the routine daily challenges of life, such as grocery shopping and managing money.

Disease Information Source: National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) and The St. Luke Hospital West Mental Health Unit