Do you view schizophrenia as a progressive brain disease? Poll

In other words, do you think we slowly get worse? Or do you think we can get better? The research seems mixed.

Is schizophrenia a progressively degenerative disease?
  • Yes, I think we slowly get worse
  • No, I think we can stay the same or even get better
  • I donā€™t know

0 voters

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Voted no. Initialy I thought so as my symptoms positive and negative were getting worse but symptoms didnt get worse since being on working meds.

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I voted no also. I forgot to click the ā€œshow who votedā€ on the poll.

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I seem to be getting a little better as Iā€™m getting older,

But I voted ā€œI donā€™t knowā€ because maybe I just have better coping skills.

Itā€™s a tough call.

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No I think that we can remain the same or even get better.

But of course there are some that will get progressively worse over time.

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I voted ā€˜I Donā€™t Knowā€™ā€¦ @aziz reaching your 40s you do get betterā€¦ But nonetheless I have this belief now that Iā€™m gonna have dementia one day which (I know) we are more susceptible to.

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In my case, Iā€™m sure Iā€™m going to get slowly worse.

Reference: my mom and my older sister. Their minds are completely gone. They are completely encapsulated in psychosis, but they believe that theyā€™re healthier than ever! But theyā€™re so, so wrong.

I really donā€™t want to end up like them. Genetics are a b****.

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Scientists donā€™t view it as a progressive brain disease any longer. Regarding cognition some get worse, some get better, and many stay the same.

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I voted No, but that is for me personally. Iā€™ve gotten a lot better after switching to Lurasidone a couple years ago. I now can work part time at a real job and I just feel better.

I also realize there are treatment resistant schizophrenics that donā€™t do so well.

My second pdoc told me around the age of 40 men with schizophrenia tend to improve while women tend to get worse. This is just a trend though, not a hard and fast rule.

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Yeah, I think positive symptoms improve but I am less confident about negatives and cognition. i am hoping that my cognition and negatives do not get worse but am less sure about them. I am not 100% about brain tissue loss as time goes by but I personally think that is linked mostly to psychotic episodes that can damage the brain.

We used to think negatives and cognition got worse. But newer studies show very convincingly that they donā€™t. There are trends toward them getting better with time, on average, but we canā€™t be sure yet. Brain tissue loss also generally does not get worse. It is mostly constant after disease onset. There is AFAIK no good evidence showing that repeated psychotic episodes cause increased brain tissue loss. It would have to be studied longitudinally because the number of episodes is associated with the severity of the illness, which is again associated with the degree of loss of brain tissue and function.

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I hope that you are correct but I have viewed multiple articles that point to psychosis as causing brain damage. Here is one I quickly pulled up.

As I said, it is difficult to study because they are correlated. So it would have to be done longitudinally, which is expensive and time-consuming. Iā€™m not sure what the article you linked to is (I donā€™t have my universityā€™s access to journals on my phone) but it doesnā€™t seem to be a scientific study or review.

The current consensus is that cognition, which is the most defining symptom of neurodegenerative diseases, does not deteriorate after disease onset. See Duration of untreated psychosis and neurocognition in first-episode psychosis: A meta-analysis - PubMed, for an example of a newer meta-analysis concluding that DUP is not associated with loss of brain function. The quality of older studies, which led to the conclusion that DUP and repeated episodes are neurotoxic, has generally been poor.

Regarding loss of brain tissue, there is evidence of some changes following disease onset (and anything else would really be remarkable), but in general, the changes are small, and most of the affected areas show no notable loss of volume post-onset.

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Cancer is a ā– ā– ā– ā–  of a journey for everyone. Schizophrenia is a ā– ā– ā– ā–  of a journey for everyone my familyā€™s on it with me, I should be great full Iā€™m not alone

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May also occur with the use of antipsychotics, here is an article from the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) psychiatry

Conclusions Viewed together with data from animal studies, our study suggests that antipsychotics have a subtle but measurable influence on brain tissue loss over time

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Yeah, I have read similar articles. Itā€™s very difficult to know what to believe. Iā€™ve read articles that suggest that antipsychotics prevent brain loss due to prevention of psychosis as well.

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Regardless of this though, they are a recommended treatment.

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Maybe your brain will shrink in either case and there is no way around it. But if my brain is going to shrink no matter what, I would rather be on antipsychotics and be stable.

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