schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a long-term mental health condition that causes a range of different psychological symptoms. These include: hallucinations (hearing or seeing things that do not exist), delusions (unusual beliefs that are not based on reality and often contradict the evidence), muddled thoughts based on the hallucinations or delusions, and changes in behaviour. Doctors describe schizophrenia as a psychotic illness. This means that sometimes a person may not be able to distinguish their own thoughts and ideas from reality.

Our schizophrenia Blogs

Behavioural weight-loss interventions can be effective for people with serious mental illness, says new RCT

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Food on the brain

People with serious mental illness have mortality rates 2-3 times as high as the general population. The primary cause of death is cardiovascular disease, which in turn is due to an extremely high prevalence of obesity (twice that of the overall population). Physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, and weight gain from psychotropic medication are all factors [read the full story…]

Are you really at risk of attack by someone with schizophrenia?

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Rebecca Syed
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Do not cross

By Rebecca Syed, King’s College London.  A violent attack by someone who is mentally ill quickly grabs the headlines. And it’s usually implied that mental illnesses are a preventable cause of violent crime. Tackle that and we can all sleep safer in our beds. But by pressuring mental health services to focus on the risk [read the full story…]

Meta-analysis finds medium-sized deficit for IQ-change in schizophrenia patients

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Emma Cernis
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lightbulb brain

When Kraepelin first described the symptoms of the disorder we now call schizophrenia, he drew particular attention towards the deterioration of cognitive function he observed in his patients and named their condition “dementia praecox”. To this day, cognitive deficits are still regarded as one of the key features of schizophrenia (and related diagnoses), and it [read the full story…]

Joint Crisis Plans to prevent compulsory admissions: a good idea stymied by poor execution?

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Stephen Wood
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Doctor and patient talking

Good mental health care should involve the patient in determining their treatment, and should involve the least restrictive form of care possible. Although the Care Programme Approach (CPA) has resulted in patients in England routinely participating in planning their care, compulsory admissions to psychiatric hospitals have continued to rise over the past decade. Involuntary treatment [read the full story…]

Genetic variation is a factor when treating schizophrenia with folate and vitamin B12 supplementation

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Symptoms associated with schizophrenia are often classified into two categories. The classical indicators such as hallucinations, delusions and thought disorder make up the ‘positive’ category whilst apathy and problems with concentration are ‘negative’ symptoms. These negative symptoms have previously been linked to decreased folate levels (Goff et al. 2004) and there is some evidence that [read the full story…]

Community treatment orders fail to reduce psychiatric readmissions for people with psychosis

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Kathryn Walsh
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Community treatment orders (CTO’s) provide compulsory supervision outside of psychiatric hospital. They require patients to accept clinical monitoring in the community and enable them to be recalled to hospital for assessment if necessary. They do not authorise forcible treatment; however whilst on a CTO a patient may be ordered to meet certain requirements, such as [read the full story…]

Long-acting antipsychotics cost-effective for treatment of schizophrenia, but evidence inconsistent

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Here at Mental Elf HQ we’re expanding our skill set to include economics. Understanding the best way to value health and health care, and improving health outcomes with budget constraints in mind, are the key pastimes of economics elves. We hope to bring you the latest economic evidence in the field of mental health and to [read the full story…]

Meta-analysis finds insufficient evidence for treatments to improve insight for people with psychosis

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Kathryn Walsh
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Man smiling in sunlight

Research suggests that many people with schizophrenia or related psychoses show a striking lack of insight into their condition (Dam, 2006). Poor insight can have a negative impact on several outcomes, including general adjustment (Stefanopoulou et al., 2009), quality of life (Drake et al., 2007), social functioning (Drake et al., 2007) and rehospitalisation. With this [read the full story…]

Cochrane review cannot support training to recognise early signs of recurrence in schizophrenia due to low quality evidence

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Emma Cernis
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man staring at piles of paper

NICE Guidelines state that around three quarters of people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia experience a chronic illness: with recurrent episodes of remission and relapse.  One way that chronic physical health conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, are managed is by using early warning signs (EWS) training and this prevention strategy is now often [read the full story…]

Factors stopping the nation from getting back on its feet: a survey of the non-fatal burden of disease due to mental disorder

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Amy Green
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Helping sister back to her feet

In times of economic adversity, the health and well-being of a nation needs consideration in order to maximise the workforce and productivity. The number of people and the amount of time spent in an adverse health-state is a prominent driver of population ill health.  Most mental illnesses begin early and persist over a lifetime. Approximately [read the full story…]

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