Dealing with Insanity

For the past two years, as we were involved in a research on new medications for Schizophrenia, we have been following up close to 100 patients on a regular basis. 

They came to the Counseling and Care clinic for treatment, each with different histories and different family backgrounds and family dynamics. Some were “spaced out,” others talking to themselves, smiling inappropriately, while others were angry and paranoid. When talked to, they could not be understood, mixing up words and thoughts. There was a case who came from a far flung municipality. He was hog tied. He was tied to Kapok tree back home because he would wander around the neighborhood and would sometimes chase people.

Family members who have seen the changes in their son or daughter from sanity to insanity, feel  angry and  frustrated because they cannot understand what happened and what is going on.  They have difficulty dealing with the family member who has mental problems. Some are treated like dogs and placed in cages. Others are let  out in the streets and left to fend for themselves (vagrant psychotics).     

Some patients have been taking traditional antipsychotics. Others take the medicines irregularly since they cannot afford to maintain the daily dose  or some have stopped because of the side effects that make their bodies stiff like a robot or a general uneasiness. These are called “extrapyramidal side effects” of the traditional antipsychotics.

Lately, there has been an advent of new medicines for psychotics that do not have the extrapyramidal side effects. Newer medicines are being discovered so there are a lot of researches going on in the field of Neurosciences.

For  two years now, we have enrolled 89 schizophrenic patients taking the non-traditional antipsychotic medications. After a week or two from the onset of the medicines, the hallucinations would start to disappear and the patients become coherent. There is hardly any extrapyramidal side effects.

Most of the patients have become fully functional. Some have gone back to their previous lives. Others have gone back to their carpentry job, farming  and office work . We have a particular patient who graduated from college and passed the teachers’ board exam.  Though a few others are just at  home, they can now do regular household chores. 

Psychological support is very important. Patients whose families are very dysfunctional usually have very slow improvement and easily relapse or become resistant to medication, especially when they experience a lot of stress. Talking to the patient and their families on how to deal with the illness and making them understand  the illness makes support for the patients easier.

If there are cases in the family or in the neighborhood whose behavior is difficult to understand, it is important that they be seen by a health professional so they can be assessed and treated adequately. (E-mail :[email protected] )