Psychosis and Schizophrenia in Children

Schizophrenia is thought to have arisen by the middle of 19th century. The term was first brought up by Eugen Bleurer. Very early onset schizophrenia is when the symptoms affect a child under 13 years of age and is quite rare among the population. The disease is thought to affect 1 in 30,000 children. The rate of onset of the disease is faster in boys than in girls. Children affected with symptoms from a very early age may develop severe symptoms as an adult. Some may feature serious behavior and personality disorders.

Psychosis can severely affect a child’s mental health and can cause problems interacting with the world. Early signs of children affected with the disease may be susceptible to language delays, late walking and other motor abnormalities.

Early onset of schizophrenia occurs before the age of 18. Teenagers affected with the disease shows symptoms of trouble in sleeping, substance use, lack of motivation and lower performance in school. This can be the cause of suicide among people of these ages. Later signs may include hallucinations, disorganized thinking, abnormal behavior, the person may also hear strange voices and thoughts in their heads and can have negative thoughts because of this. Delusions can also occur later in life and it would feel as if the person is trapped in their own world. They could possibly live a life completely different from reality. It is a chronic condition and may need lifelong treatment. And this can lead to severe anxiety, difficulty making and keeping friends, withdrawing from society and can also have problems communicating with the people around them becoming isolated and can also cause complications in day to day activities like extreme moodiness leads to no proper hygiene and personal grooming. They may go under depression, family conflicts, aggressive behavior, health and medical problems which in turn leads to excessive alcohol or drug abuse and causes severe emotional and stress related problems, due to this the person may think of committing suicide and self-harming themselves.

With the recognition that the longer the person remains psychotic the poorer is the overall outcome. Early treatment can really help limit the psychotic episodes which can scare the child and even the parents. The significance of this issue is that teen suicide rates have been climbing year after year. It hasn’t been the same or constant due to the modernization of societies and people’s behavior and treating every disease one by one is the only way to prevent it.