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Administrator
Administrator
14915 Posts
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 Posted - 04/29/2016 : 22:30:27
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Overcoming Negative Symptoms
Early, Lifelong Treatment With Medication
Although antipsychotic medication doesn't decrease negative symptoms once they appear; staying on antipsychotic medication appears to often prevent these negative symptoms from developing or getting worse.
A few research studies have found that combination therapy with antipsychotic plus antidepressant medication is an effective treatment for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia (with a Number Needed To Treat [NNT] =3 which is a robust clinical finding).
Starting antipsychotic medication early in the course of schizophrenia has been shown to stop the worsening of negative symptoms.
Thus most psychiatrists recommend starting antipsychotic medication treatment for schizophrenia early, and staying on it for one's entire lifetime. If antipsychotic medication is only used for one year to treat the first psychotic episode of schizophrenia then stopped, subsequently 83% of patients will relapse back into psychosis after 24 months.
It is a tragedy when successfully treated individuals with schizophrenia stop their antipsychotic medication. Invariably, this eventually triggers a psychotic relapse and worsening of negative symptoms. The Importance of Supervised Social and Recreational Activities
Individuals with negative symptoms of schizophrenia usually find it difficult to seek out friends or pleasurable social or recreational activities.
That is why it is so important to have organized social and recreational activities offered by community centers or mental health drop-in centers (i.e., day activity centers). These drop-in centers should offer more than just coffee. They should offer a number of supervised social and recreational activities (e.g., choir, arts and crafts, volleyball, movies, cooking lessons, carpentry lessons, etc.). Avoiding Street Drugs
One of the worst things people can do to overcome their negative symptoms of schizophrenia is to use illegal street drugs.
Cannabis ("pot") in particular has been proven to worsen schizophrenia and trigger psychotic relapse. So it should especially be avoided.
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Topic #5 Points To Ponder
