Parents Cope With Schizophrenia
July 13, 2009 by Karlynn Johnston
Filed under Super Informed
This was an incredibly good article and one that was suggested for posting on the site. Jani is a 6 year old who who seems to have been born mentally ill, which is a rarity. She loves all animals, but the ones she plays with are only imaginary ones that she sees alone. She’s tried to kick and bite her brother, suffers delusions and has outbursts of rage. Adult medications are seemingly useless, and she knows she is sick, but she likes the rats that she sees, they “are cool”.
She has been living in a ward in the UCLA hospital since January, unable to live with her parents due to the danger she poses to herself.
“Child-onset schizophrenia is 20 to 30 times more severe than adult-onset schizophrenia,” says Dr. Nitin Gogtay, a neurologist at the National Institute of Mental Health who helps direct the children’s study, the largest such study in the world on the illness.
“Ninety-five percent of the time they are awake these kids are actively hallucinating,” Gogtay says. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything more devastating in all of medicine.”
You can read the rest of the article at the LA Times. I also highly recommend watching the video that accompanies the article.
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