Introduction
This paper will analyze the Schizophrenia along with its symptoms. It will also analyze an important scene in the movie “a beautiful mind” which was directed by Ron Howard. The main character in the move is John Nash who is played by Russell Crowe; he is supposed to be suffering form of schizophrenia. His wife is played by Jennifer Connelly; she is extremely supportive and caring towards her husband.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is psychological disorder, however this disorder is related to directly to the imbalance of neurotransmitters in the brain. Patients suffering from it experience delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, and grossly disorganized or catatonic behavior.
Majority of the people who get Schizophrenia fall between 16 to 25 years of age. Through research it is proven that males have a better chance of getting schizophrenia. However after women are 25-30 years of age they may even get it (American Psychiatric Association 2000). Studies support the assumption that Schizophrenia may be an inherited mental illness. A dopamine imbalance is often considered to be the cause the symptoms of schizophrenia. Recent studies propose that serotonin, might also be the cause of the symptoms of schizophrenia.
A specific problem in schizophrenia is noncompliance, which substantially increases the risk of psychosis and the related expensive hospitalizations. Depot or long-acting injection formulations are believed to increase compliance, and may therefore reduce the risk of psychosis and hospitalization (Heeg etal 2008 p633).
The reason behind a person getting schizophrenia is not known completely even though here are a number of theories. Schizophrenics seem to have trouble in coordinating number of activities between diverse areas of the brain. Schizophrenics have intense activity in the in frontal lobe -however there is no reduction of activity in the other parts of the brain. Researchers have recently been successful in identifying particular areas of abnormal activity when schizophrenics experience hallucinations.
Symptoms
There are a lot of symptoms of schizophrenia. Schizophrenics will frequently hear voices. At times the voices are seem to be accusing them, and at times seem to be threatening them.
Schizophrenics get visual as well as perceptual hallucinations. They might even experience Hypersensitivity. An alteration in their Personality is the foremost symptom by which schizophrenia can be diagnosed. Emotion, interest and motivation are completely lost. Alteration in their way of thinking most intense change, as it s them from stop thinking clearly. In forming thoughts they can be sometimes extremely fast and sometimes extremely slow.
Two distinctive symptoms and related characteristics of Schizophrenia are positive symptoms and negative symptoms. As time goes by the seriousness of these symptoms will increase. A number schizophrenics experience constant psychotic symptoms and others just have symptoms at the time of severe episodes and are usually normal before the severe episodes occur.
Even the Positive symptoms of schizophrenia are known as psychotic symptoms. They tend to distort the patient’s normal functioning. Instances are hallucinations and delusions. Positive symptoms are by no means beneficial; however they are symptoms that occur during schizophrenia and may respond more to treatment.
Hallucinations are sensory preceptors; a person does not experience them due to outside stimuli. Thus they are mostly auditory experiences for schizophrenics. For them these experiences are real. Hallucinations result in delusional beliefs this serves as a reason for the hallucination. For example, if a person hears a voice of an alien telling them that they are the chosen earthling to take over the world, the person would figure that they are the Supreme High Commander of the Earth. This would be delusional.
Negative symptoms of Schizophrenia consists of the loss of normal functions, or functions that appear to be absent in the Schizophrenic’s behavior, these symptoms are hard to identify. Negative symptoms carry a poorer prognosis than positive symptoms. A few examples would be social withdrawal, lack of emotional responses, slower movements, or they may not experience basic drives like hunger and apart from they also lose all normal pleasure that comes with satisfying it (Joni 2003 p 25).
A common symptom of Schizophrenia includes a deadening of the person’s non-verbal emotional responses and refers to the lack of outward expression. This is called blunted affect or affective flattening. Blunted people have expressionless and apathetic faces. They are not cheerful or gloomy; they appear rather indifferent. There voices loose all fluctuation and thus this shows that there is never a change in mood.
Anhedonia is stage schizophrenia when the patient does not show any positive feelings. It is the person’s incapability to experience pleasure. Schizophrenics will loose all past interests and socializing. A lot of patients are socially withdrawn and are unsuccessful in interpersonal relationships because of the emotional and cognitive problems they experiencing. The patients usually experiences Social isolation before other symptoms such as hallucinations show up. Schizophrenics may use withdrawal as a way of dealing with other symptoms; as this helps them to reduce stimulation; which inurn make sit easier for them deal with other symptoms. Social withdrawal is accompanied by Avolition, which is a lack of will. The person becomes apathetic and stops working towards goals, or functioning independently.
Lastly, alogia is a form of speech disturbance and another negative symptom. When literally translated it means ‘speechlessness’.
A kind of alogia is poor speech. A person just does not have anything to say. Another form is called ‘thought blocking’. This is where a person’s train of speech is stopped before an idea is completed.
The initial symptoms of schizophrenia might consist of no personal hygiene, depression, forgetfulness, strange behavior, drug or alcohol abuse, a massive change personality, and illogical statements. Normally, antipsychotic, or neuroleptics are used as treatments for psychotic symptoms of schizophrenia.
Treatment
Treatments to help free schizophrenic patients of hallucinations may become a possibility after researchers discovered their underlying cause. Structural and functional abnormalities have, for the first time, been found in specific brain regions responsible for processing voices. Many brain regions have been implicated in schizophrenia but no single region has been consistently reported as abnormal until now (Tanday 2007 p 4).
The best treatment for schizophrenia is medications , some antipsychotic drugs which help in the treatment are:
- chlorpromazine
- haloperidol
- perphenazine
- fluphenazine
Atypical Antipsychotic
- Clozapine
- Risperidone
- Olanzapine
- quetiapine
- sertindole
- ziprasidone
Relevant scene
A Beautiful Mind is a movie about the 1947. A man whose name is John Nash is suffering from schizophrenia.
The movie A Beautiful mind draws an extremely accurate picture of Schizophrenia (Myers 2004 p528). The hallucinations are the most important part of the entire movie; this further supports the accuracy of the film.
The most relevant scene is Nash imagined that he was seeing Russian spies working for the government. Nash saw William Parcher, a maniacal Department of Defense agent. In all actuality, these “Russian spies” were just doctors and people from the hospital walking into the Auditorium. In a panic-like state, Nash frantically ran out of the building, petrified that these spies were out to get him and perhaps catch him or stop him from decoding his secret messages. They tried talking to him, but Nash did not believe them. Alicia shortly found out that this was happening, and was emotionally overwhelmed. She discovered his office where he was decoding things. Nash told his wife to be quiet because the “Russians” had microphones and they would be able to hear her.
This scene depicts every symptom of schizophrenia; it shows how Hallucinations are triggered and how real they are for the patient.
Conclusion
Schizophrenia is mental illness that a lot of people’s lives, it impairs their social and physical functioning. If one wants to see a rue portrayal of it they should watch a Beautiful Mind.
References
American Psychiatric Association (2000); Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV-TR Fourth Edition (Text Revision) American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc.; 4th edition.
G. David Elkin (1999); Introduction to Clinical Psychiatry McGraw-Hill Professional p. 41.
Heeg, Bart M. S.; Damen, Joep; Buskens, Erik; Caleo, Sue; de Charro, Frank; van Hout,Ben A (2008);Modelling Approaches: The Case of Schizophrenia.. PharmacoEconomics Vol.26,Iss.8;p.633-648
Joni E. Johnston (2003); The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Psychology alpha books edition 3 p. 25.
Myers G. David (2004); Exploring Psychology, Worth Publishers sixth edition p.528.
Tanday, Sanjay. (2007) Hallucination hope for schizophrenia. GP: General Practitioner p.4-4.
International Trade Simulation And Report
Absolute advantage
Absolute advantage is the ability of a certain economic unit like a particular country to produce a product in high quantities with a lower cost of production than some other unit. This is done when the units are compared. This is done to calculate the efficiencies of production. Comparative advantage is done to have the trades and specialization determined. These theories are for international trade concepts. Issues that surround the international trade Some of the basic issues that are involved in the international trade arena range from some areas. In the theory of comparative advantage, there can be a trade between two countries on certain goods. In such a case both of them can benefit from having a specialty in the goods with comparative advantage and then proceed by trading in them (Ray, 1998). With this happening, there are is more efficient than one country has all the goods. Another issue is the Heckscher Ohlin model which deals with gains and losses. In this, two concepts are involved, that one of intensity and that of abundance. In case two goods use two production inputs that are labor and capital, the ratios of production will be different for both. I say a good A uses more of a ratio B to C, then the good is B sensitive. In this case it is good to note the relativity of the intensity. If the endowment of a country with B is higher than C, it therefore holds that the country is B abundant. On the other hand, if a country has a greater advantage in technology than one country, then it means that the country has a comparative advantage (Krugman, 2006). Other issues which might arise are the interventions by the government which is led by historical and expectation roles. Economies that do have very much equilibrium can decide to surpass one of them and hold it in that place.
Role of the summary assessment
Summary assessment is a procedure where a court on having decided which party is liable to make some costs makes an immediate assessment on the costs to be paid under such an order rather than having costs that are fixed or maybe detailed assessments (Ray, 1998). In section 3.2, summary assessment becomes important when a fast-track trial is concluded or when a hearing is concluded. In section 14.1, hearings of summary assessment are when the hearings have contested directions or there is a dismissal from the court of appeal, or there is an application for appeal permission. Once this is made, the assessment can take place which is done by the DPR. If a certain party has a reason for disputes, then the summary assessment can take place. It is also not possible to carry out the assessment when the time is not sufficient. It is appropriate to have the assessment take place if there is an application. Effects Of Government Policy On Economic Behavior Government policies have both positive and negative economic behaviors. Some good example is the introduction of antitrust laws, regulations for banking, insurance policies and some transfer programs. On qualitative basis, there are similar effects when comparison is made to the rural areas and the urban areas. Tax rates and credits affect the income that operates government programs in such areas. The banking regulations have made the collapse of major banks and have also led to the economic breakdown that happened in the recent past. Taxpayers usually respond to government policies. These responses, on the other hand, can then inform the government on policy design. |
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| The amplified fluidity of most capital markets more often than not call for innovative understanding to force and of course formulation of the taxation capital income which is nearly economic difficulties of income and the tax reforms reduce the income. Research has capitalized in measuring how the agents respond to taxation of the income, how other systems can be gotten to make taxation easier. This has helped to assist the government in decision-making. | ||
World trade organization
This is an organization that is responsible for dealing with trade rules between countries at global levels or at times near such levels. At the core of this organization are agreements that belong to the DTO and are signed by the trading nations of the world. This organization above the liberalization of trade maintains trade barriers like consumer protection, environmental protection and prevention of diseases.
Being a rule-based organization; one of the trade topics that the organization deals with is the fairness of the markets to the farmers. The first GATT had loopholes in it like when it permitted countries to use non-tariff measures like quotas on imports and subsidization. This distorted agriculture to a very large extent (Krugman, 2006). There was no importance of using export subsidies to those goods that were of industrial nature.
The first multilateral agreement to try to save this was the one in Uruguay.
This was done in 6 years since 1995. In this round, there was an agreement on the continuation of reforms through negotiations. It came to be launched during the year 2000 after having met the requirements of the Agriculture Agreement.
These agreements had more rules and commitments owing to the fact that they had a focus on reformation on trade and have improving policies on the market. This had application on market access which had restrictions on the imports. Domestic support is oriented to programs and subsidies including other programs. These include those that guarantee and raise prices for farm gates and income to the farmers. Some others are export subsidies and methods that artificially make exports competitive.
About the company
Looking at the World Trade website, it is wise to conclude that the organization is more oriented towards the reformation of the world trade towards the betterment of all the trade organizations. The trade organizations have thus become more reformed and there is fairness in the market.
References
- Krugman, Paul & Obstfeld, Maurice. (2006), International economics: theory and policy, Addison-Wesley: Boston MA.
- Debraj, Ray.(1998). Development Economic, Princeton University Press: Princeton
Peer Pressure As A Factor For Behavior Change
Whether one recognizes it or not, peers have a lot of influence on one’s life. When the influence is exerted continuously, it leads to peer pressure. Members of Peer groups encourage a person to change his/her behavior, morals, and thoughts to conform to set norms and standards. Peer pressure can lead to either negative or positive influences such as hanging out with the wrong crowd or learning efficient ways of doing things. The need for compassion, to learn from others is some of the reasons that create the need for peer groups.
Peer pressure can affect anyone, regardless of their age and background. It can occur at school, the workplace, or within the larger society. The need and desire to belong and fit in the community is the main cause of peer pressure. It is human nature to associate with other people and to be accepted and receive compassion. Peer groups are also a great source of friends, as people share life experiences, they build strong lasting bonds and a base for lasting friendship. The need for success is another cause of peer pressure. People identify and compare themselves to their peers, they mirror themselves against their peer’s behaviors, and may choose to be or not be like their peers.
Peer pressure is most prevalent during adolescence, where teens replace family with peer group as the main source for leisure and social activities. At this age, teens are curious to try new things on their own; outside the family circle. In other cases, teens are insecure and are looking for approval from their age mates, or they simply want to be liked. With increased emotional, physical and social changes, which are characteristic of adolescents, teens start to question the standards sets by the adults and parents. At this stage, advice from age-mates is more preferred than approaching a parent or adult.
Although peer pressure is mostly associated with teenagers, the reality is adults also face peer pressure. In the workplace, adults deal with peer pressure as they struggle to please other, while at the same time making their own informed decision. Adults tend to make use of scripts borrowed from their teen life to deal with perceive pressure from their workmates. Although the reaction might be different, the need for conformity and compassion is very real. Take for instance a person invited to a weekend group party by his/her colleagues. Although nobody may be persuading the person to attend the party, the person may feel obligated to attend. Thus, peer pressure is there but the person has an upper hand in choosing his/her response.
As one becomes more independent, the influence from peer increase. Influences exerted by peers create peer pressure, which can result in negative or positive attitudes, behavior and/or morals. The need for compassion, acceptance and the need to fit in a community creates the need for peers. Peer pressure is applied with most force during adolescence as the teen starts to question adults’ wisdom. Peer pressure is also common in adults, although the response is different depending on the situation.