ABSTRACT
Schizophrenia is a debilitating condition that affects 1 in 100. It is traditionally characterised as a loss of contact with reality. The symptoms of psychosis are classified as positive and negative. Positive symptoms include disturbed perception in the form of hallucinations – mainly auditory but sometimes visual, tactile or olfactory – and disorders of thought, including delusions. Negative symptoms include cognitive dysfunction, loss of volition, an inability to enjoy experiences and activities and poor self-care skills. Schizophrenia is frequently associated with impairment of cognition and emotion. Vocational and social functioning are often disrupted and the disorder is associated with considerable social and economic burden to the sufferer, the carers and society as a whole. The mainstay of treatment has been anti-psychotic medication combined with some form of case management delivered by multi-disciplinary mental health services. The outcome is variable in spite of treatment. Typically, the disorder follows an episodic relapsing course with periods of remission, although recovery is often incomplete and residual hallucinations and delusions are common. However, the range of outcomes is broad, with some cases making a complete recovery and others becoming resistant to conventional treatments.
