Schizophrenia awareness still low: Doctors

Schizophrenia awareness still low: Doctors

JAKARTA (JP): Doctors are calling on the public to pay greater
attention to schizophrenia, particularly to teenagers suffering
the illness.

Psychiatrists warned on Thursday that parents should seek
medical advice if their children were intensely paranoid,
unreasonably silent, extremely aggressive, or often suffered from
delusions and hallucinations, as they could be signs of
schizophrenia.

While the mental illness afflicts all ages, it is most
prevalent between the ages of 15 and 30.

"Children under 15 can also suffer from schizophrenia, but
it's rare," senior psychiatrist at Cipto Mangunkusumo General
Hospital, Sasanto Wibisono, said.

Beside the symptoms mentioned above, he said, schizophrenia
patients are also prone to spouting nonsense. Their intellectual
capacities also show a tendency to decline.

Sasanto said if anyone displayed these symptoms regularly for
a month, he or she could most likely be classified as a
schizophrenic.

It is believed that the main cause of the illness is a
neurochemical imbalance in the brain.

"But there are some cases where there's nothing wrong with the
patients' brain," said Irmansyah, a psychiatrist and lecturer at
the University of Indonesia's School of Medicine.

He added that stress and complications in pregnancy could also
be a trigger.

"When a parent is schizophrenic, the child has a 10 percent
probability of suffering it too. If both parents are
schizophrenic, the probability rises to 40 percent," Irmansyah
said

It is estimated that between 0.2 and 2 percent of Indonesians
suffer from the illness.

Irmansyah said awareness of the illness was still very poor.

"Sufferers are very often discriminated against and patients'
rights are often violated," he said, adding that schizophrenics
were often shunned by their family.

He added that due to low awareness of the illness, patients
were usually only taken to a doctor when they were chronically
ill. "As a result, it takes a very long time to cure them. They
could suffer for the rest of their lives," Irmansyah said.

Although the illness is not 100 percent curable, antipsychotic
medication administered in its early stages is helpful.

Sasanto said that while schizophrenia may not be fatal it
caused a tremendous emotional and financial burden on sufferers'
families.

"Although it's not a deadly illness, 30 percent of
schizophrenic patients become very depressed and suicidal," he
added.

In order to increase people's awareness of schizophrenia,
Sasanto, Irmansyah and colleagues will hold an inaugural national
three-day conference on the illness here on Oct. 8.(09)