SOC313: DISCHARGE PLAN (Schizophrenia) discussion

Schizophrenia is a complex, chronic, lifelong condition characterized as a psychotic disorder. Psychosis is a condition in which there is distortion of reality and disturbances of thought (Falvo, 2008). There are different types of schizophrenia.  All of them have strange and serious symptoms.   There is no cure, but it is manageable. Institutionalization for schizophrenia is most always in connection with a psychotic episode.  They are matters of life and death for the individual experiencing it.  Individuals with schizophrenia tend to have a number of health problems in addition to the symptoms experienced as a result of their condition. They have a 20% shorter life expectancy relative to the general population (Falvo, 2008). There are asylums for the insane that house thousands of mentally deranged, catatonic, or delusional people. It’s happens from time to time when those who begin taking anti-psychotic or anti-depressant medication are bound to feel some side effects.  It’s the difference between what psychiatric professionals call clean or dirty medicine.  We have all seen commercials for the Zoloft or Abilify brands with one possible side effect being death. One side effect in particular that can be treated with another type of anti psychotic called Cogentin is called Tardive dyskinesias are involuntary movements of the tongue, lips, face, trunk, and extremities that occur in patients treated with long-term dopaminergic antagonist medications (Brasic, 2012). If you have never experienced a schizophrenic episode, it is impossible to comprehend how frightening and upsetting it can be. During a schizophrenic episode, a person loses contact with reality. They may hear and see things that are not actually happening, experience paranoia and believe that other people mean them harm or are monitoring them, and be unable to communicate in a clear or meaningful way (Taylor, 2011). This is how a person can wind up having an inpatient stay, and some of these people stay there for their whole lives.  The medications for a place like that are mainly Haloperidol and Thorazine, two powerful tranquilizers. There is a study and many theories about the treatment of schizophrenia to find a balance between sedation and stimulation.  Patients may be zombie-like or could be so hyperactive that they are incoherent or can’t manage themselves. Upon discharge patients should have regular check ups, usually done by someone working for their insurance company, to be sure the person is taking their medication and are no harm to themselves or others.  There are crisis lines for people contemplating suicide or being too paranoid to the point that they are potentially dangerous.  Mental health hospitals usually have peer support groups that will also aid in stabilizing and helping support people having really dire straight. References Brasic, J. R. (Feb 9, 2012).  Tardive Dyskinesia.  Retrieved from http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1151826-overview Falvo, D. (2008). Medical & Psychosocial Aspects of Chronic Illness and Disability (4th ed). Jones & Bartlett Learning. Schizophrenia, bipolar, or depression antipsychotic medications and their side effects.  Uploaded by Magpiemedia1 on Jul 18, 2011.  Retrieved on October 24, 2013 @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8F1mFebmvI Taylor, V. (April 29, 2011).  Schizophrenic Episode.  Retrieved from http://www.schizophrenic.com/articles/schizophrenia/schizophrenic-episode

RE: Discharge Plan--week 2 discussion

Joshua, thanks for this great information. You mentioned a critical point to consider in the patient’s discharge plan and that is suicide. Reducing the possibilities to harm themselves or others must be discussed in the discharge plan. Also, an effective discharge plan should have a crisis plan identified and developed. There must be an emergency contact if the patient shows signs of producing harm. Can you be specific with indentifying the individuals who should be part of developing the patient’s discharge plan? Again, great information. Professor Scott

RE: Discharge Plan--week 2 discussion

I remember I was specifically told that Dr. Boyd, a PhD who met with me once a week was making the final decision when I could go home.  He looked like the lead singer from Incubus, who's last name is also Boyd. The entire staff at a psychosis recovery hospital staff has an input on the discharge plan.

RE: Discharge Plan--week 2 discussion

Joshua, One point you made about not understanding Schizophrenia unless you are personally effected rings true to me because I have a close friend whose father was diagnosed when she was child. The type of planning that her family has to make in order to ensure that he continues on a path of health and wellness is quite different than what other families typically go through. While the medication he is on works well and he has not be hospitalized in quite a long time, that is not because he condition has improved it is because he and their family have made great strides in creating a healthy environment which supports his discharge plans including regular medication, therapy, group counseling and  a regimented daily schedule. It has truly changed the way the family functions but the hard work has paid off tremendously and he is thriving at work and home. -Lucie

RE: Discharge Plan--week 2 discussion

That's an informal response, especially on my thread.  I am diagnosed schizophrenic, and my wife is 5 months pregnant.  A symptom of this disease of the brain is that I don't believe myself to be ill.  I have no other treatment besides the medication, but that doctor did recommend seeing a counselor, too.

RE: Discharge Plan--week 2 discussion

I agree with you when you said "If you have never experienced a schizophrenic episode, it is impossible to comprehend how frightening and upsetting it can be. During a schizophrenic episode, a person loses contact with reality. "I have an uncle that is schizophrenic and if he does not take his medication or if the medication needs to be adjusted he can have episodes of delusion. He has had inpatient stays a few times, but this is not because he chooses to do so, it is for his safety. When he has his episodes he loses all reality to the so-called real world and can cause harm to himself or others. This was frightening to watch as a young child and wouldn't wish this disease on my worst enemy. The best thing that we can do for him as caregivers is to be there for him and make sure that he is taking his meds. on time on a daily basis. We also look for signs that maybe the medication isn't working as it did when he first started it, his medication has been changed many times over the years and it gets easier to see the signs before he has an episode.

RE: Discharge Plan--week 2 discussion \

I have never had a schizophrenic episode but it just sounds like it would be very frightening and upsetting just thinking about it.  And also it is never just a one time episode and that would make it even more scary just thinking everyday that one day it could happen again and you have no idea what you are going to do because you have no control when it comes to schizophrenia.  Good post.

The Media and Structural Violence's Effect on Children

            Violence in the media very much contributes to more of violent behavior in children.  Even the lack of media reporting the good news debilitates a nurturing environment.  There is no doubt that youth of today are confronted with a very different media than the one faced by their grandparents or even their parents (Starsburger, 2009).  The early years are a crucial time for brain development.  Children need time for activities that are critical for healthy mental and physical development.  Early formative years should be spent playing, reading, exploring nature, learning about music and participating in sports (Mweba, 2011).  There are safeguarding boundaries that exists in the format and choices in different media, but for the most part, it’s become less and less suitable for younger minds.

            Structural violence and the media’s fantastic mirage of politics and consumerism does mostly harm and what good it does only treats side effects of the schism itself.  Structural violence is the leading cause of all behavioral violence.  Newspapers have become obsolete in the 21st century with the advent of alternative media.  Twenty-four hour news networks do little to even mention the Martin Luther King, Jr. or the Mahatma Gandhi personalities who are just as active today in public life today as they were before.  Despite the existence of compelling, empirical evidence that media violence causes increased aggression in the observer or game players, intelligent people still doubt the effects.  A fundamental reason is that the outcomes of such research have implications not only for public policy but how one views oneself (Hughsman, 2013).

            We parents are called to train up a child in the way they should go and when they get old they will not depart from it.   With the illusion of free will also goes its opposite, the illusion of freedom to choose our genes or our environment we grow up in as children.  Still, there is the option of strict conservative discipline.  Wholesome recreation definitely produces smarter and more positive effects in children than war video games and movies with violence as the main plot has on teens and kids that play or watch them.  Some parents let children as young as four or five own an I-Pad or DSI.  This is helpful if they are strictly monitored, but it has been shown as a parody for a zombie apocalypse with a large group of young people hanging out, and every one of them is staring down at their device.

            TV has a system by which parents can monitor what their children watch.  There is a 7 level television rating scale Y (all children) - M (Mature) much like movies G (General Audiences) - NC17 (no one 17 and under admitted).  Parental discretion is advised for some programs.   One or more letters may be added to the basic rating to indicate that a show contains higher levels of violence, sex, adult language or suggestive dialogue  (parentstv.org, n.d.).  There is actually even a rating called FV for fantasy violence.  This is referred to about scenes that do not look real, such as cartoons.  There are adult cartoons out there like South Park or Bevis and Butthead that have been accused of warping young minds.  While this may be true for MTV’s Bevis and Butthead, it is not necessarily the case with South Park which has a 10PM EST spot of Comedy Central.  Although it was designed as a satirical cartoon for adults, South Park has clearly established a strong following with much younger viewers than its original audience of mainly 18- to 39-year-old males. As has been the case with The Simpsons, the language and other semiotic codes associated with South Park have entered the everyday lives of young people the world over (Nixon, 1999).

            What is technology’s purpose?  Is the impact of a generation of leaders raised with Twitter and Facebook at ease being felt?  Not yet.  The programs the generations passed have been offered are much less interactive.  Advertising is using more cunning techniques to reach their target audiences.  There really is not much parents can do about the type of things their kids view on social media, but when monitored, it can be a revelation about the young one’s personality.  Is a person’s profile any glimpse into their character?  Of course so.  That is why I will propose stricter labeling of dangerous people and groups.  It is already under way with the NSA’s government surveillance and anti-terrorism agency.  Controversy surrounding media content labeling has long occurred between industry and government officials, parents, and researchers alike. Even though much debate has ensued, little change to content labeling makeup has emerged (Stone, 2012).

            We saw many parents at Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Together projects, standing against structural violence, hoping to build a greater legacy for their descendants.  And therein, some examples of things these parents may be teaching children is the act of civil disobedience.  The principles of non-violent, non cooperation are transmitted to a new generation in demonstrations, like the recent events in Iceland, where peaceful protests brought about termination of the corrupt government, nationalization of the public banks, liquidation of everyone’s debts, and a new constitution (Jacobs, 2012).  Civilization began.  But, where was this incredible, monumental, revolutionary event ever mentioned in the mainstream media?  It hardly got reported at all.

            Quentin Tarantino films are notoriously violent.  Most teens who are allowed to watch them think they are some really cool movies.  They do have sentimental stories that just so happen to include plenty of blood and foul language.  Now, the question is not how do we get younger people to not enjoy these movies but how do we educate them about the implications of the uncouth, detestable behavior seen in them.  The media should not be a behavioral modification therapy, but a key idea that will contribute to more ethically-based, young persons minds are adults, who’s life purposes it is to teach, constructing by themselves a new genre that is approved of by their students (Barker, Petley, 2002).  There is an old saying that if the student does not do greater work than the teacher, the teacher has failed.

            There are popular media outlets, such as Walt Disney, that are geared specifically towards providing entertainment suitable for teens and younger crowds.  Disney is especially famous for reaching ages 4-9 with legendary stories like Bambi, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid.  Disney has their own cable network that features animated and bright live shows.  The Jonas Brothers are a rock band who wear purity rings that represent their vow to not have sex or mess around like that until marriage, the conservative agenda that made Disney successful in the market.  Recently, however, the Jonas Brothers have been roasted for marketing sex to young girls with sensual singing and dancing to their boy-girl related songs or videos.  Selena Gomez, a Disney pop star, is often seen being much more “grown up” than the innocent belle she played on the television show starring her, “Wizards of Waverly Place.”  Brittney Spears is another example of a Disney Mouskateer who is less than an excellent role model for little girls to aspire towards.

            In conclusion, there is the notion that media is over using the graphic, violence simulation scenes and the notion that the media fails to represent the more benevolent matters of truth.  Both notions are valid, but the second is more causal than the first.  This is due to the modern, availability of quality, truthful media representing positive values.  Constructive entertainment has become an oxymoron.  Critics of media biases are saying that this is simply a reflection of public consensus.  “No matter how much we may try to ignore it, human communication always takes place in a context, through a medium, and among individuals and groups who are situated historically, politically, economically, and socially.  This state of affairs is neither bad nor good. It simply is.  Bias is a small word that identifies the collective influences of the entire context of a message” (Rhetorica, n.d.).  When a generation is becoming more liberal and more defensive of their own freedoms, safety, and identity, it is the younger ones who will reap the consequences of negligent moderation of media.

References

Barker, M., & Petley, J. (Eds.). (2002). Ill effects: The media violence debate. Routledge. 

Huesmann, L. R., Dubow, E. F., & Yang, G. (2013). Why It Is Hard To Believe That Media Violence Causes Aggression. The Oxford Handbook of Media Psychology, 159.

Jacobs, S. R. (April 16, 2012).  The Icelandic Revolution: Why Didn’t I Hear About It?  Retrieved from http://cac.ophony.org/2012/04/16/the-icelandic-revolution-why-didnt-i-hear-about-it/

Mweba, A (2011).  Effects of Media Violence on Children.  Pediatrics for Parents. Sep/Oct2011, Vol. 27 Issue 9/10, p6-7. 2p.

Nixon, H. (1999). Adults Watching Children Watch "South Park.". Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 43(1), 12-16.

Rhetorica (n.d.)  Media and Political Bias.  Retrieved from http://rhetorica.net/bias.htm

Strasburger, V. C. (2009). Children, adolescents, and the media. Sage.

Stone, C. H. (2012). Effects of Content Label Type and Style on Movie Audiences’ Perceived Threat to Freedom, Desire to View, and Expectations of Media Programming (Doctoral dissertation, Texas Tech University).

Television Ratings Guide (n.d.).  Retrieved from http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/parentsguide/tvratings2.html

Understanding Self: Nature and Nurture

    I was born in Memphis, Tennessee to a single parent.  We stayed in Memphis for a while, and I was raised there in my beginning by my mother and her siblings.  I spent the first few years of my life as the only child of my mother until my half-sister was born when I was four years old.  I also have 2 half-sisters on my father’s side, but I never met them or my biological father until I was in my mid-twenties.  I am also the firstborn offspring of my father.  Shortly after I was born, my grandfather, my mother’s father, gave my mom a house in which she was to be able to raise me and not be hassled with paying rent.

    What I remember most of my childhood was witnessing the violent battles between my mom and step-dad, and this probably caused me to develop into a pacifist.  I do not remember much from before adolescence, because I suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of 13.  I was in a coma for eight days, but I healed quickly and returned to the 8th grade having missed only one semester.  Therefore, my understanding of personality, sexuality, and gender was formed much in the celebrity like status I had coming back from the dead and the later, immensely, shrunken popularity status I experienced in high school.  As sociologist, Dalton Conley of New York University says in his lecture “Breaking the Wall of Nature and Nurture: How Genes and Environment Combine to Affect Our Life Course” (n.d.), our character is defined not only by genes and an environment but also by the genes of others who share our environment, as was the case with me.  I was really, very effected by such a traumatic event and the impact it had on my community.

    The nature versus nurture debate is an attempt to calculate which has more influence on an individual’s state of being and action orienting (or lack thereof), genetics (nature) or the environment (nurture).  One who argues that nature is the sole producer of a person’s stature are called nativist, and they point to evolution and human DNA as making each person have the character they do as unique individual’s with a specific genetic code.  The other view is that nurture is the primary cause, and those who argue for this conclusion are called empiricists.  Their notion is that the human mind is a blank slate that is gradually “filled” as a result of experience (McLeod, 2007).  However, most would say that neither is the sole cause of a person’s condition but that both have substantial influence on everyone, albeit to different degrees.

    Nature may have had more of an impact than nurture in my life, and I believe, measurably, in the whole of people’s life in this world.  According to Frank Huguenard in his scientific documentary, Beyond Me (2011), there is a link to be explored between animal instincts and our personalities.  For example, every year monarch butterflies migrate 2500 miles to escape the cold winters.  What may be most amazing about this migration is not just the distance, but the fact that it takes four generations of monarch butterflies to make the trip and that the butterflies -- four generations apart -- use the exact same trees to winter each year (Heimbuch, 2012).  This startling fact raises the question of how instincts are transmitted to offspring from ancestors.  I mention this in this paper discussing my own understanding of self to explain the environment being an effect of genetic, karmic baggage that we have received from countless generations past via the cause, nature.

    Nurture, as I identified, is somehow related to the genes of others in one’s immediate environment, their conditioning to respond to one as they perceive themselves, and it has an effect as mentioned in the Huguenard documentary of a typist on the keyboard of our programming.  Nature would be the keyboard, and the environment inputs, or types instructions or suggestions.  My understanding of self and gender was computed by much the same way as my peers were conditioned.  We all grew up seeing images of glamour and excess in the majority of media.  This caused quite the schism when it came to appreciating our necessary purpose, which has more circuity between people when it is humble and not founded on self-satisfaction, as was the case in my generation, at least in my perception.

    In conclusion, hereditary transmissions do not change in a person, but people can, at will, change the environment in which they find themselves living.
In my case, economic security has always been an important factor in my family’s genetic code, as was the legitimacy of our place in the world.  Therefore, for me personally, nature is the fixed system with which I must change my environment, and nurture is simply the ideology of an assumed freedom or an accepted servitude that I have to work with in this effort for change.





References

Conley, D.  (n.d.)  Breaking the Wall of Nature and Nurture: How Genes and Environment Combine to Affect Our Life Course.  Films Media Group.

Heimbuch, J.  (Nov. 22, 2012).  Nature Blows My Mind! The Multi-Generation, 2,500 Mile Monarch Butterfly Migration.  Retrieved from http://www.treehugger.com/slideshows/natural-sciences/nature-blows-my-mind-multi-generation-tk-mile-monarch-butterfly-migration/

Huguenard, F.  (2011).  Beyond Me.  Retrieved from http://beyondmefilm.com/index.php/beyond-me

McLeod, S.  (2007).   Nature Nurture in Psychology.  Retrieved from http://www.simplypsychology.org/naturevsnurture.html