How to Detect Early Schizophrenia Symptoms

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder mostly connected with the thought process and emotional responsiveness. The medical condition is characterized by impaired thinking, behaviors, and emotions. Usually, the disintegration of thought process and emotional responsiveness manifests in the form of paranoia, strange delusions, auditory hallucinations, and disorganized speech and thinking. These symptoms are often followed by noticeable dysfunctions in social and occupational aspects. Although children ages 14 or under can be affected by this mental disorder, schizophrenia typically begins between the ages of 15 and 25. The early signs can be categorized into several groups, namely physical symptoms, behavior, feeling and mood, cognitive problems, as well as delusions and hallucinations.

Physical Symptoms

Early physical symptoms include unusual postures or gestures, awkward gait, clumsiness, sleeping disorder (either insomnia or too much sleep), sped up movements, slowed up movements, overly sensitive senses (especially to bright lights or loud noises), involuntary movements of tongue and mouth, Parkinsonian symptoms (e.g. jerking arm movements, rigidity). Other physical symptoms include blank facial expression, inability to express emotion through the face, and tendency to stare with infrequent blinking while engaged in deep thinking.

Behavior

People with schizophrenia tend to restrain themselves from social activities and have difficulty in building or maintaining relationships, neglect their self-care (e.g. clothing, hygiene, appearance), have excessive preoccupation with spiritual or religious activities, misuse drugs and alcohol, replay or rehearse conversations in loud voice (i.e. talking to themselves), and smoke (although many non-schizophrenic people also smoke). They also find it hard to cope with minor problems or difficult situations and are unable to engage in purposeful activities.

Feeling and Mood

Schizophrenia also affects feelings and moods. Early signs include inability to feel enjoyment from doing activities, feeling indifference to important matters, hypersensitivity to insults or criticism, sudden anger, little enthusiasm, depression, severe anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and frequent mood changing.

Cognitive Problems

Early signs of schizophrenia also include cognitive problems such as ruminating thoughts (thoughts that go round and round the head), poverty of speech (speaking very little), thought blocking, lack of insight, strange use of language structure, difficulty in expressing thoughts verbally, nonsensical logic, or disintegrated thought, action, and behavior.

Delusions and Hallucinations

Delusions are most frequently connected with paranoia and can manifest in many forms. People suffering from schizophrenia might think that their food might be poisoned or that the people around them are conspiring to harass them. A religious person may have the delusion that she/he is a god or a prophet. Meanwhile, hallucinations include visual and auditory hallucinations.

It is very important for you to know how to identify early schizophrenia symptoms. The earlier schizophrenia is detected, the higher the chance for cure. Visit our website to find out more about this mental disorder.

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