Biological treatment for schizophrenia and evaluation Flashcards
What is the main biological treatment?
Drug therapy.
How do antipsychotic drugs work?
Some of these work by reducing the effects of dopamine. They aim to reduce the amount of dopamine available or reduce the amount of dopamine receptor sites by blocking them.
What are the class of drugs that block the dopamine receptors?
Phenothiazines
What do Phenothiazines do?
block the dopamine receptors
Evidence has shown that these drugs can do what?
that these drugs can reduce positive symptoms such as hallucinations in many people with schizophrenia.
When are the maximum benefits produced?
They produce the maximum, benefits within the first 6 months.
How are drugs administered?
Drugs are administered in tablet form, or sometimes, by injection.
In the early days how was schizophrenia treated?
In the early days, schizophrenia was treated physically with psychosurgery and electroconvulsive therapy, but these proved largely ineffective.
Evaluate in terms of supporting evidence.
Meltzer (2004) tested 481 patients with schizophrenia who were randomly assigned to two groups. One group was given an antipsychotic drug and the control group were given a placebo. The results clearly showed the effectiveness of antipsychotic drugs as they made a significant improvement in both positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
Evaluate in terms of usefulness and ethics.
drugs can be seen as both a cheaper and more ethical way of treating patients who might have in the past have to be institutionalised. The drugs allow the patient to live in society and also enable them to access other therapies. Furthermore antipsychotic drugs are often the only successful treatment if a patient is believed to be a danger to themselves or others. It should be noted however that antipsychotic drugs do not as yet cure schizophrenia they only control it.
Evaluate in terms of Side effects.
the drugs often produce unpleasant side effects, which themselves often require further drug treatment. Side effects of antipsychotic drugs include, weight gain, problems with sex drive, low blood pressure and a decrease in spontaneity and motivation. These side effects can be so unpleasant as to cause the patient not to take the drug.
Evaluate in terms of compliance.
Rosa et al (2004) found that only 50% of patients comply with their medication regime questioning the effectiveness of anti-psychotics. This can often lead to relapses and re-admittance to hospital. Patients often have to be supervised in their taking of their medication and many patients do not have either adequate social networks or community care to support them.
