Can you be cured from schizophrenia

Can Schizophrenia Be Cured? – BrightQuest Treatment Centers

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness that has no cure. It causes symptoms of psychosis, including hallucinations, delusions, disordered thinking and speech, abnormal behaviors, and changes in emotional affect. While this condition cannot be cured, it can be successfully treated. Antipsychotic medications are crucial for managing symptoms. Medications are most important in treatment for schizophrenia, but patients are also helped by therapy, lifestyle changes, social support and services, and self-management. Schizophrenia must be treated indefinitely to successfully manage symptoms.

Why Can't Schizophrenia Be Cured?

Schizophrenia is a mental illness and a psychotic condition characterized by a break with reality that causes a number of symptoms. The most typical symptoms are hallucinations and delusions, but this illness can also cause disordered thinking, unusual behaviors and emotional affect, mood changes, depression, and other symptoms that make it difficult to communicate with others, to relate to people, to hold down a job, to take care of responsibilities at home, or to be successful in school.

Schizophrenia is a severe and chronic mental illness, which means there is no cure for it. There are treatments, lifestyle changes, and other strategies that can be used to manage symptoms and to allow someone with schizophrenia to live a more normal life. A combination of medication and therapy is the most effective treatment, and although most people who get treatment see improvements, this condition requires ongoing, lifelong management.

Treatment Begins with Diagnosis

Although there is no cure for schizophrenia, treatment can be very effective and makes a big difference in the life of someone living with this disruptive condition. The first step to getting the best treatment is to get an accurate diagnosis. There are five categories of symptoms used to diagnose schizophrenia:

Hallucinations. Hallucinations are sounds, voices, images, or sensations that a person believes are real but aren’t actually there.
Delusions. Delusions are false beliefs that cannot be changed by facts or logic.
Disorganized thoughts and speech. Thoughts jump from one thing to another very quickly, resulting in difficulty communicating and speech that doesn’t make sense to anyone else.
Disorganized behavior. Disorganized behaviors may include aggression, agitation, acting childlike, or anything else unusual.
Negative symptoms. Negative symptoms of schizophrenia may include decreased emotional affect or response, lethargy, or even catatonia, showing no emotions or expression and barely moving.

In order to be diagnosed, a person must have at least two of the above symptom types, and one of those must be hallucinations, delusions, or disorganized speech. The symptoms must be prevalent for at least a month at a time, cause significant problems in a person’s life, and cannot be better explained by another condition or a medication or drug.

Treating Schizophrenia with Medication

It can be easy to assume that any medication is a cure for an illness, but this isn’t always true. With schizophrenia the medications used to treat it help to manage symptoms, but they do not cure the condition. Even though they do not provide a cure, they have an important role to play and help many people with schizophrenia get relief. Therapy alone is not enough to treat schizophrenia.

The medications used for schizophrenia are called antipsychotic drugs. These drugs are thought to work by acting on the neurotransmitter in the brain known as dopamine. They help relieve symptoms but can also cause side effects. The goal of using antipsychotics to treat schizophrenia is to use the lowest dose possible or the smallest combination of drugs that manage symptoms. Some patients may have to try more than one medication, or a combination of drugs, before settling on treatment that gets results with the fewest side effects.

Antipsychotics include first and second generation medications. The first generation drugs generally cause more side effects, but they are also less expensive. Second generation antipsychotics are generally preferred, as they come with less risk of serious side effects. Examples of second generation antipsychotics used to treat schizophrenia are:

Aripiprazole (Abilify)
Clozapine (Clozaril)
Lurasidone (Latuda)
Olanzapine (Zyprexa)
Paliperidone (Invega)
Quetiapine (Seroquel)
Risperidone (Risperdal)

Some of the first generation antipsychotics that are sometimes still used include chlorpromazine (Thorazine), fluphenazine (Prolixin), haloperidol (Haldol), and perphenazine (Trifalon). Although these and the second generation medications can cause troubling side effects, it is important to not stop using them without direction from a doctor. A prescribing doctor can help transition patients from one medication to another to reduce side effects.

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Therapy for Schizophrenia

Medication is a must for schizophrenia, but patients can also benefit from various types of therapy. One-on-one therapies, like cognitive behavioral therapy, can help patients take active steps to manage their illness. Therapists guide patients through practical actions that help them recognize and change negative behaviors and moods, better relate to other people, set and pursue goals, and learn and use healthy coping skills.

Other types of therapies can also help people with schizophrenia manage symptoms. Family therapy, for instance, can be very important in helping loved ones better understand schizophrenia and the kind of support that is needed. Social support groups and group therapy programs help individuals with schizophrenia practice social skills and get support from others who go through similar experiences.

In addition to therapy, patients can also get good results from other types of social and community programs. Vocational training to help them learn job skills and land and maintain paying positions as well as social skill training programs can provide ways for individuals to integrate better into the community. Coordinated specialty care programs may also be available and can help individuals get assistance with several areas, including work, training, school, family therapy, and social skills.

Lifestyle Changes and Self-Management

Making positive changes in all areas of one’s life supplement and support medical and psychological treatments. Maintaining good physical health, for instance, can help improve overall wellness and quality of life, while spending time with friends and family provides a good source of social support. Some strategies for making positive changes and for being proactive in managing one’s own mental health include:

Eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise
Maintaining a healthy weight
Getting enough sleep
Avoiding drugs and alcohol
Spending time with family and friends
Taking time to do enjoyable and relaxing activities
Avoiding taking on too many responsibilities
Setting goals
Using relaxation strategies, like meditation or yoga
Keeping up with treatment and communicating with doctors about changing symptoms and side effects
Take advantage of available social services

Preventing and Managing Complications

Another important part of managing schizophrenia is recognizing and dealing with the complications it can cause. All of the challenging symptoms can contribute to secondary problems, like suicide, self-harm, financial problems, academic difficulties, substance abuse, depression and anxiety, social isolation, and even being the victim of a crime or becoming homeless.

Only treating the condition does not necessarily help a person with schizophrenia live their best life. Anyone with this mental illness should be screened for other mental illnesses and substance use disorders and get treatment as needed. Family support is also crucial in helping manage or prevent some of these complications. Having family to live with, financial support, and a social support system can reduce the risk of negative behaviors, like self-harm, and can help a person maintain a job or get through school.

Prognosis

There may be no cure for schizophrenia, but the outlook for patients who get diagnosed and seek treatment is generally good. Most of those who receive treatment will improve. Many can return to a more stable lifestyle, hold down a job, and potentially live independently. It is important, however, even when treatment is successful very quickly, to stick with it. It can be tempting to stop going to therapy or stop using a medication, but this is a chronic illness and it requires ongoing care.

Schizophrenia Prognosis, Outlook, and Chances of Recovery

Written by WebMD Editorial Contributors

If you have schizophrenia, there is much reason for hope. New antipsychotic drugs are being studied, and brain research is revealing more about the roots of this mental illness.

Is There a Cure?

While there is no known cure, it is possible to live a meaningful and happy life with schizophrenia. There are many effective treatments, best provided by a team. These include medication, psychotherapy, behavioral therapy, and social services, as well as tools to help you stay in school or keep working. Psychiatrists, primary care doctors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals will help you and your family find the treatments best for you. The earlier you get help, the better your outcome. With treatment, many recover to the point of living functional, rewarding lives in their communities.

How Does Schizophrenia Progress?

The first signs of schizophrenia usually appear between your late teens and mid-30s. According to one large analysis, the median age of the start of schizophrenia around the world was 25, meaning that half of the cases appeared before that age and half appeared later.

It may take a year or two before the vaguely strange early symptoms of schizophrenia – during what’s called a “prodromal phase” – turn serious enough to prompt a visit to a psychiatrist. In some people, the illness never goes beyond this point, but in most cases, it does.

The active phase of your schizophrenia may last several years or up to a decade. This can be an alarming period for you and your loved ones. But it’s often followed by a less stormy phase where your more intense symptoms, like hallucinations, stabilize. But such symptoms as loss of interest, trouble thinking, and relationship problems are more likely to linger.

Schizophrenia Recovery

Some people do recover “fully” from schizophrenia. Ten years after diagnosis:

50% of people with schizophrenia recover or improve to the point they can work and live on their own.
25% are better but need help from a strong support network to get by.
15% are not better. Most of these are in the hospital.

Antipsychotic medications work well. One study found that symptoms go away in about 70% of the people who get treatment. Their social occupational functions often improve within 6 months, although that score may not rise much after that. Your quality of life can get better most of the time.

Long-term numbers for 30 years after diagnosis are similar to those at the decade mark, except that more people get better and can live on their own. The lifetime risk of suicide for people with schizophrenia is about 5%, but getting treatment and taking medication seem to lower that risk.

Women seem to be better than men at staying in recovery long-term. Medications, cognitive therapy, and a strong support network can help you find ways to lead a successful life with your mental illness.

What Affects the Outcome?

If you or a loved one has schizophrenia, here are a couple of things that may affect success long-term:

How well you did in society and at work before your schizophrenia began
The amount of time from the start of symptoms to diagnosis and treatment. The sooner you’re treated for schizophrenia once symptoms begin, the more likely you are to improve and recover. But prodrome – the time between when symptoms begin and full psychosis starts – can be days, weeks, or even years. The average length of time between the start of psychosis and first treatment is 6 to 7 years.

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