Auditory Stimulation for Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia may present with the signs of other psychiatric disorders, particularly affective, psychotic and anxiety disorders. Schizophrenia can present with a variety of behavioural dysfunctions and cognitive deficits. More focussed research is needed to further define these and, ultimately, the best interventions for this common and severe mental illness.

If people with schizophrenia are treated early and adequately, then many will live relatively well with their symptoms; and some will not have chronic severe psychotic episodes. Some individuals are resilient to symptoms and many of them function well enough in their lives to be discharged from the workforce. Many are able to marry or form a stable relationship, but not all choose to do so.

It is a common misconception that the USA has more people suffering from schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia than any other country. There are some differences in the epidemiology of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder across the world, but none are as extreme as the misunderstanding of the actual number of people in such conditions.

Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder that occurs when brain abnormalities interfere with normal functioning resulting in deterioration of everyday life and can produce a range of symptoms such as negative symptoms. More than 80% of diagnosed patients develop schizophrenia.\n

There are a number of theories explaining causation for schizophrenia. All three theories propose there is little direct causality of schizophrenia's pathology. Other research is needed to verify these theories and to clarify the complex relationship between mental disorders, psychopathology, and neuropathology.

The most common treatment for schizophrenia is antipsychotic drugs. Combination of antipsychotic drugs is often advocated, where the use of a first line agent firstly and secondly of two atypical antipsychotic drugs, often followed by the addition of a third atypical antipsychotic in the form of either risperidone or olanzapine to the first and second lines respectively. Moreover, the prevalence of psychoses and schizophrenia are higher in a minority of the population than the actual number reported in clinical data, which is indicative of a sub-clinical status of such disorders.

One of the most common side effects of hearing stimulation is the development of auditory hallucinations. These side effects develop more frequently when listening to popular music, but can occur even when listening to music by avant-garde composers.

We found that the seriousness of schizophrenia does not depend only on how often it manifests itself, but also on how it affects your life. It is thus important to know whether schizophrenia is an incurable, chronic disease or a chronic disease which can change radically as you get older. Most importantly, it is extremely important to know how severe and serious schizophrenia can be. In all of these aspects, of course, the seriousness of schizophrenia is a matter of the individual suffering from it. We do not yet have the right diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia, but these are the only ones that have been used for so many years.

Results from a recent clinical trial suggest that auditory stimulation using auditory video games with or without feedback can improve QOL in those patients with schizophrenia and that this improvement may be maintained at 1 month. The QOL is very important not only to the patient (for which clinicians are striving to develop effective interventions for the disease), but also to society (to prevent the patient's family members from deteriorating).

A significant relationship was found between auditory stimulation and social functioning scores in young adults with schizophrenia. Individuals with schizophrenia who reported more auditory stimulation from childhood, peers, or family members had better social functioning than nonstimulated individuals, while auditory stimulation from self, family members, or peers did not have an effect on social functioning scores. Further research into the relationships between parental stimulation and young adult social functioning in individuals with schizophrenia is needed.

The present data support the idea that schizophrenia is heritable in our sample. In addition, for the first time we found independent evidence that this is true in schizophrenia probands. Data from a recent study show for the first time that there are familial influences in both sexes for both genders in schizophrenia, which is contrary to what has been shown in other disorders like autism. The inheritance of schizophrenia is independent of the age at onset of schizophrenia, but it appears to be dependent on the sex where the psychosis occurred.