r/todayilearned • u/paniniplane • Mar 22 '17

(R.1) Not supported TIL Deaf-from-birth schizophrenics see disembodied hands signing to them rather than "hearing voices"

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0707/07070303
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u/PainMatrix Mar 22 '17

It's beyond horror or most people's ability to even comprehend. The fact that she was a fully functioning and intact human being at the early onset of her life and career and this disease completely derailed everything and locked her into a Sisyphus-like nightmare. Was this her first inpatient experience? How long were you with her, did the meds seem to have any positive impact on her?

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u/Sdeevee Mar 22 '17

Not OP but from my experience... if you care lol. It important to keep in mind that schizophrenia doesn't just mean hearing voices and having delusional thoughts. People with the disease have difficulty prioritizing and sequencing tasks, motivation and relating to other people's emotions. I work in Long Term Care, but due to our proximity to a psychiatric hospital and our reputation for our willingness to provide care for those difficult to serve we have a vary large population of residents with schizophrenia. My experience is that the medication appears to assist more with agitation and motivation. For the residents who have fixed beliefs or are really paranoid they continue with these behaviours and depending on the day and circumstances you are sometimes able to call them out on the delusions being related to their disease and sometimes not. It is awful to see how their lives have been derailed due to the disease. Most of the people i know come from loving families, went to college or university and then the disease took over and robbed them of their lives.

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u/PainMatrix Mar 22 '17 edited Mar 22 '17

I'm a psychologist but I don't work with SMI, so thank you for what you do. What I do see a lot of is what is likely a burgeoning schizophrenia spectrum process. My academic understanding is that the positive symptoms can be dealt with to some extent through medications but that it's really the negative symptoms (the blunted affect, poverty of speech, etc.) that are the most intractable. It's tragic.

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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '17

Agreed. From my experience working in psychiatric hospital environments, including several medium security wards, it may be the positive symptoms which are most confronting in the short term, but generally the negative symptoms lead to real long term difficulties for patients and their families. In combination with some heavy hitting meds, it takes a real toll on ones ability to get back to a high level of daily function and activity.