The Most Common Psychological Disorder - 1066 Words

The Most Common Psychological Disorder; Schizophrenia Dakota Landers University of West Georgia Technical College July 3, 2016 Abstract Schizophrenia is a common disorder that effects many people. There are many types of symptoms that cause strange behavior and inability to function in certain situations. Although it is a very commonly diagnosed disorder there is no factual evidence of what causes people to be effected by it. There are people that do genetic testing to look for a certain piece of DNA that they think may be linked to schizophrenia (this hasn’t been proved that they are linked). There are many types of treatments, therapies, and medications that patients can choose from to treat their disorder.†¦show more content†¦Cognition is what keeps us aware of our surroundings, contributes to making good judgements, effects our memory, intelligence, judgement, executive functions, social abilities, and many major functions. Impairments in cognitive abilities make tasks difficult and can lead to disability. 4/5 schizophrenics show cognitive deficits. Most patients take longer to encode information given to them but they do very well with information that they are repeatedly exposed to. Working memory is the most effected cognitive deficit. Working memory is what is the most important factor in encoding information; This is tied directly to verbal encoding as well. Many patients that are effected by executive function deficits have issues with solving skills, handling change, recognition, being able to recognize faces and emotions. (This is social cognition being impaired.) These dysfunctions can cause many issues in socio-occupational life. (Kar, 2016) Positive, negative, and emotional symptoms are all things that many schizophrenics face on a daily basis. Some of the positive symptoms that they experience include – Hallucinations, movement disorders, delusions, and thought disorders. Some of the negative symptoms are – algoia (reduced speech output), asociality (lacking interest in social activities), anhedonia (lessened pleasure from activities), avolition (d iminished motivation in activities that are self-induced). These are all things that make everyday life incredibly hard to manage.