Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that interferes with a person's ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. Many people with schizophrenia have hallucinations and delusions, meaning they hear and see things that aren't there and believe things that are not real or true.
Research has linked schizophrenia to changes in brain chemistry and structure, and some of these changes may be present very early in life. Like cancer or diabetes, schizophrenia is a complex, chronic medical illness affecting different people in different ways.
Schizophrenia is not caused by bad parenting or personal weakness. A person with schizophrenia does not have a "split personality," and almost all people with schizophrenia are not dangerous when they are in treatment..although their behavior can be quite unpredictable or unusual.

Symptoms of Schizophrenia
No single symptom positively identifies schizophrenia, and there is no lab test. In addition, a persons symptoms may change over time.

Altered Senses
People with schizophrenia have trouble making sense of everyday signs, sounds, and feelings. They may see the world around them as distracting or frightening and may become extra sensitive to colors, shapes, and background noises. They may even have trouble telling the difference between themselves and others, or between themselves and objects around them.

Hallucinations, delusions, and confused thinking
Commonly, schizophrenia causes hallucinations, which means hearing voices or seeing things that dont exist. Or, people with the disorder may have delusions, which means that they believe ideas that are obviously false, such as that they are God or that they can control other people's minds. Schizophrenia also often causes people to experience interrupted or confused thinking and to talk without making sense.

Altered or blunted emotions
The disorder can cause people to express feelings inappropriately. They may laugh at the death of a loved one or become angry when a favorite team wins a game. Sometimes people with schizophrenia feel or express no feeling at all. Understandably, its hard for people with such symptoms to relate normally to others, and they generally have intense periods of withdrawl and extreme isolation.

Other behavioral changes.
Schizophrenia can cause people to move more slowly, make rythmic gestures over and over again, or move in ritualistic ways, such as walking in circles. Some people with schizophrenia have almost no motivation and have trouble finishing tasks. In severe cases, the illness can cause people to stop speaking completely or stop moving and hold a fixed position for long periods of time.

Who gets schizophrenia?
People can get schizophrenia at any age, but three-quarters of those with the disorder develop it between the ages of 16 and 25. It affects slightly more men than women. Children can also have schizophrenia. New cases are quite rare after age 40.
Although the disorder runs in families, the chance of becoming ill with schizophrenia is very small for most people. If no one in your family has ever had the disease, the chances are 99 out of 100 that you wont either. If one of your parents, a brother or sister has schizophrenia, there's still about a 90 percent chance that you will never develop the disorder. If both your parents have schizophrenia there is more than a 60 percent chance that you will never have it. And, if you have an identical twin with schizophrenia, there is a 70 percent chance you will not become ill.

What causes Schizophrenia?
Scientists still dont know exactly what causes schizophrenia, but they do know that the brains of people with schizophrenia are different, as a group, from the brains of those who dont have the disorder. Research suggests that schizophrenia has something to do with problems with brain chemistry and brain structure. It is as much an organic brain disease as is Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's Disease, or Alzheimers. Increasingly, it seems that schizophrenia, like many other medical illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, is caused by a combination of problems, some inherited and others occuring during a persons development. For example, some scientists think that schizophrenia may be triggered by a viral infection affecting the brain very early in life, or by mild brain damage from complications during birth.

How is schizophrenia treated?
Schizophrenia can usually be successfully treated with medication. As with diabetes, a cure for schizophrenia has not yet been found, but most peoples symptoms can be controlled with Primary medications called antipsychotics or neuroleptics which help relieve the hallucinations, delusions and thinking disorders. These drugs seem to work by correcting an imbalance in the chemicals that help brain cells communicate to each other.

Common side effects
of drugs used to treat schizophrenia include dry mouth, constipation, blurred vision and drowsiness. Some people have less sexual desire, menstrual changes or significant weight gain. Other side effects relate to muscle and movement, including restlessness, stiffness, tremors, or probably the most unpleasant, serious side effect of antipsychotic drugs, a condition called tardive dyskinesia Tardive dyskinesia consists of facial movements that can't be controlled and sometimes includes jerking or twisting movements of other parts of the body. This condition is hard to treat and it happens in some people who take antipsychotic drugs, usually after several years of treatment. Tardive dyskinesia affects perhaps 15 to 20 percent of people who take conventional antipsychotic drugs.

If you would like to know more about schizophrenia, an organization called NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) has alot of information available including part of the the information I posted here! NAMI