Remarkable. Schizophrenia was once called "dementia praecox," and with good reason, as most people diagnosed with it never got better over the long term. I can remember very stark stories about young people felled by schizophrenia, written by their parents, during the 1960s.
Now with better prescribed medications and better cognitive therapies it is possible to be "high functioning" person with schizophenia, and more research on that issue will help more suffering people function better. And the first small number of successful cases of persons with schizophrenia achieving professional success, family togetherness in a new family, or even both, will give hope to more suffering patients.
A seminar video produced by the University of Virginia, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters' Journey Through Schizophrenia,"
tells the story of sisters Pamela Spiro Wagner and Carolyn S. Spiro, M.D., one of whom has schizophrenia, and one of whom does not, even they are identical (monozygotic) twins who were brought up in the same home.
who was credited as the main adviser on schizophrenia relied on by the author of the biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind. Gottesman has spent much of his career researching schizophrenia and debunking former theories about the origin of schizophrenia. Twin studies, especially studies of the unusual cases of monozygotic twins reared apart, and adoption studies have consistently shown that schizophrenia develops from an underlying genetic vulnerability (probably varying greatly from patient to patient, according to the best evidence from genome-wide association studies) that makes a patient all too likely to develop full psychotic symptoms over the course of childhood without careful treatment. Gottesman's research goal is to define "endophenotypes" that can be reliably measured clinically to identify patients who need one kind of preventive or supportive treatment rather than another. But we are nowhere near identifying endophenotypes for any major mental illness.
Now with better prescribed medications and better cognitive therapies it is possible to be "high functioning" person with schizophenia, and more research on that issue will help more suffering people function better. And the first small number of successful cases of persons with schizophrenia achieving professional success, family togetherness in a new family, or even both, will give hope to more suffering patients.
A seminar video produced by the University of Virginia, Divided Minds: Twin Sisters' Journey Through Schizophrenia,"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzDPlktZrGI
tells the story of sisters Pamela Spiro Wagner and Carolyn S. Spiro, M.D., one of whom has schizophrenia, and one of whom does not, even they are identical (monozygotic) twins who were brought up in the same home.
They also have a book about their story.
http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Minds-Sisters-Journey-Schizoph...
Some of my perspective on these issues comes from knowing Irving Gottesman,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Gottesman
who was credited as the main adviser on schizophrenia relied on by the author of the biography of John Nash, A Beautiful Mind. Gottesman has spent much of his career researching schizophrenia and debunking former theories about the origin of schizophrenia. Twin studies, especially studies of the unusual cases of monozygotic twins reared apart, and adoption studies have consistently shown that schizophrenia develops from an underlying genetic vulnerability (probably varying greatly from patient to patient, according to the best evidence from genome-wide association studies) that makes a patient all too likely to develop full psychotic symptoms over the course of childhood without careful treatment. Gottesman's research goal is to define "endophenotypes" that can be reliably measured clinically to identify patients who need one kind of preventive or supportive treatment rather than another. But we are nowhere near identifying endophenotypes for any major mental illness.