Caregiving

Caring for a Loved One With Schizophrenia

Discovering that someone you care about has schizophrenia can be traumatic. Making things worse is the need for long-term treatment to calm symptoms. A person with schizophrenia often becomes confused and agitated, which some may mistake as behavior directed towards them.

All told, schizophrenia places a difficult burden on families. Fortunately, there are steps families can take to make the situation easier, says Noreen Brady, PhD, RN, a professor at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. The key, she explains, is for families to understand what they face when a loved one has schizophrenia.

Is it easy to tell if a family member has schizophrenia?
Part of the problem is that schizophrenia often becomes evident in the person either in their late teen years or early 20s. And the normal curve for adolescence is so broad. You can be really unusual and eccentric and still not be ill and not have schizophrenia.

When you have someone with schizophrenia, however, you perceive symptoms through behavior, and most adolescents aren't terribly verbal with their parents during this time—even if you have the best relationship in the world.

Are there any obvious signs that a parent should pay attention to?
Even the best parents would be hard-pressed to notice the changes immediately. It isn't like the child goes to bed one night and then wakes up the next morning changed.

Normally, parents might look back and say, "You know, the last couple months, so-and-so has been really withdrawn, staying in their room, not wanting to come and eat with us or spend time with us." But that can be normal, too, and that doesn't necessarily mean a person has schizophrenia.

Often, the symptoms that will be very evident would be what we call the positive symptoms. These include hallucinations, hearing things that aren't there, seeing things, feeling, smelling, tasting, something that's perceived through the senses that isn't there.Big clues include if the person just stops eating from things that they don't open themselves (such as milk containers), or if they talk about somebody trying to poison them. Schizophrenia is easier to discover when the clues are obvious.

Has the treatment of schizophrenia improved?
In the past, you couldn't get a psychiatrist to give a diagnosis of schizophrenia for a teenager, because it had such a negative connotation. Now, the paradigm has shifted and the emphasis is on early diagnosis and treatment. This can make a world of difference.

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