Psychosis is a psychological disorder in which the person's mental state is altered, causing him to live in two worlds simultaneously, in the real world and in his imagination, but he cannot differentiate them and they often merge.
The main symptom of psychosis is delusions. That is, the person in a state of psychosis cannot distinguish reality from fantasy and, therefore, does not know how to situate himself in time and space and has many schisms. A psychotic may think that the neighbor below wants to kill him, even though he is aware that no one lives in the apartment below.
Main symptoms
Usually a psychotic person is agitated, aggressive and impulsive but the main symptoms of psychosis include:
- Delusions; Hallucinations such as hearing voices; Disorganized speech, jumping between various topics of conversation; Disorganized behavior, being able to spend very agitated or very slow periods; Sudden changes of mood becoming very happy in a moment and depressive soon after; Mental confusion; Difficulty in getting up relate to other people; agitation; insomnia; aggression and self-harm.
Psychosis usually appears in young people or adolescents and can be transient, being called a brief psychotic disorder, or be related to other psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder, Alzheimer's, epilepsy, schizophrenia, or depression, and is also common in drug users.
How the treatment is done
Treatment for psychosis should be directed by a psychiatrist and consists of taking antipsychotic medications and mood stabilizers such as risperidone, haloperidol, lorazepam or carbamazepine.
Often, in addition to medication, it is necessary to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital where treatments can be performed with electrical devices for electroconvulsive therapy. However, the Ministry of Health only approves this therapy in specific situations such as imminent risk of suicide, catatonia or neuroleptic malignant syndrome, for example.
The hospitalization can take from 1 to 2 months until the person is better and can be discharged because he is no longer able to put his life and that of others at risk, but to keep the person under control, the psychiatrist can still keep the medications that could be taken for years.
In addition, weekly sessions with the psychologist or psychiatrist can be useful to reorganize ideas and feel better, as long as the person takes the medication correctly.
In the case of a postpartum psychosis, the doctor may also prescribe medication and when the psychosis puts the baby's life at risk, the mother can be removed from the baby, requiring even hospitalization. Usually after treatment, the symptoms disappear and the woman returns to normal, but there is a risk that she will have a new psychotic condition in another postpartum period.
Main causes
Psychosis does not have a single cause but several related factors can lead to its onset. Some factors that contribute to the development of a psychosis are:
- Diseases that affect the central nervous system such as Alzheimer's, Stroke, AIDS, Parkinson's; Severe insomnia, where the person takes more than 7 days without sleep; Use of hallucinogenic substances; Use of illicit drugs; Time of great stress; Deep depression.
To reach a diagnosis of a psychosis, the psychiatrist must observe the person personally trying to identify the symptoms presented, but may also order blood tests, x-rays, tomography and magnetic resonance to try to identify if there is any change that may be causing the psychosis or to mislead other diseases.
