Forums → WEPR → Schizophrenia
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Huuuuuuu the thread kinda derailed a bit but since we're talking about the concept of medical non-compliance, I'll allow it and take us back a little bit.
This is going to be a big post because I can't stand the sheer weight of misconception that persists in this thread. And it's going to look like I'm picking on one user, but that can't be helped, because all the misconceptions came from said user's posts, lol.
314d1, you're in over your head, and really should have stopped when you tried to slag off peer-reviewed sources without knowing how research works and how to judge the validity of articles. Discounting article validity on the basis of personal experience is prone to reporter bias. In the hospital I work at, for example, there might be up to 600 inpatients at any one time, and on average at least 25-30 of them would have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Furthermore, half of those patients would have drug refractory schizophrenia and would be undergoing trials on clozapine + adjuvant agent therapy (just to point out that the symptoms of schizophrenia aren't necessarily well controlled by drugs). Now 30 out of 600 is more like 5%, but obviously this is also a biased sample, seeing as it's a hospital and inpatients are not representative of the entire population. Nor, I can guarantee, are the "nearly 100" people you know, particularly ironic this note seeing as you speak against statistics then attempt to brandish a rudimentary application of it to state your own case, which I'll address now:
it would appear that mood disorders (including schizophrenia) make up a small part of hospital discharges, let alone the general population
This is because the turnover rate of chronic schizophrenics i.e. rate of discharge is far lower than that of medical patients, let alone surgical patients. Find me data on average length of stay and admissions, then we might be able to talk about what the data implies.
So your argument is "People maybe might stop taking the pill just 'cause and will start going around Europe with their wife doing the will of the voices". I would assume this is rare.
Your assumption is incorrect, in the context of patients with schizophrenia, it's common. Think about it this way: schizophrenia affects the way a person relates to reality. This involves reality of the self, that is to say that almost by its very definition, a patient affected by schizophrenia loses insight into their condition. If you don't think you need to take a drug, you wouldn't take it. Now consider that paranoid delusions (formerly classed a first rank, or positive psychotic symptom of schizophrenia) are a common feature/presentation of schizophrenia... suffice to say that doctor/patient rapport with schizophrenics is often difficult to establish, and insisting they need to take medication which they don't think they have to take isn't going to help!
Just in case you don't get it, insisting on compliance is on the basis that many of these patients are at high risk of self-harm and harm to others if symptoms aren't suppressed, so you could say this is a real "between a rock and a hard place" illness.
Seeing as dair5's lapse in the taking of his inhalers was mentioned and examined: they're obviously not the same case, but there are parallels. An asthma regimen generally includes short term symptom control, longer term symptom control/preventer. The vast majority of patients often take the short term relief (salbutamol a.k.a. Ventolin) and nothing else, because that's the only thing they actually feel relief on. This is partially correct: it's the only drug that directly affects the acute exacerbation of asthma. The other stuff that is to be taken once or twice a day every day regardless of how you feel affects the background function of the airways, which one doesn't necessarily take note of. If you can't tell if it's making you feel better or not, is there a compelling personal reason to continue taking that medication? Of course it would be easy to forget!
Likewise, the majority of 314d1's comments re: schizophrenia indicate that he has no insight into schizophrenia itself. Which is of course to be expected since he has never seen it, never experienced it, and never studied it, and appears too firmly grounded in the "roots of reality", so to speak, to realise that he takes the premises on which he has based the assumption of his "sanity" very much for granted.
Don't you just love wild hypothetical situations! What do old people (who commonly need a ton of medicine) do when they get in that situation?
The answer to this varies from: a) give up taking the pills and as far as we can tell it never affects them in any discernible or outcome-altering fashion b) panic and rock up at the nearest doctor's rooms/hospital causing much confusion c) suffer an adverse outcome based on the absence of the risk-modifying drugs they were taking (though in general they'd have to be pretty unlucky for this to happen, as there are very few long-term medications upon with the life/death of a patient directly depends on compliance).
**** does happen, you know. Take it from somebody who works the front lines on a daily basis, not just spouting off from a keyboard and a computer screen.
So the only difference is that you like one and don't like the other? Hardly an argument.
On the contrary, this is the crux of the argument when it comes to patients following doctors' treatment recommendations.
I would assume that, much like eating, you would either have to find a way to get it, or suffer the effects.
Happens to millions of people on a daily basis around the world.
[quote]I guess some people would be okay with pills. I don't see how these are the best solution. It's like giving someone a bottle of water a day instead of opening up a pipe for them.
It isn't the best solution, but it is a pretty amazing one. Instead of suffering threw the effects, you can simply take the fruits of modern medical science and rid yourself of your affliction for at least the rest of the day. Would you rather they suffer threw it?[/quote]
The reality is: it's not cost-effective.
Modern medicine is not cost-effective. The only thing that's been "cost-effective", as dair5 indirectly suggests, are public health and infrastructure measures (the water pipeline), but that's a double-edged sword because that means more people alive for longer, more people needing acute medical care (i.e. the bottle of water a day).
Believe it or not, this can't last forever. In fact, it can't really last that much longer.
What happens is the flash starts off appearing maybe .25 seconds after you click. After a while of doing this, the researchers then make the flash appear just a few milliseconds after you click. The result is that the research participants fail to recognize that they are still 'causing' that flash of white to appear. In fact, they report that the flash appears before they click!!
The philosophical implications here are profound and numerous. But if they need to be spelled out, I can do that.
I think you might have to spell it out!
"There are three kinds of lies. Lies, ****ed lies, and statistics"
I would prefer something more like a census, it sounds like the people in the last post just asked a hundred people "Are you a schizophrenic?" and one person said yes. Statistics annoy me.
dont a statistic that you have not self faked.
I would assume that, much like eating, you would either have to find a way to get it, or suffer the effects.
Happens to millions of people on a daily basis around the world.
wow, thats hard.
what is Schizophrenia?
