What are the common symptoms of schizophrenia?

Psychosis: Schizophrenia is a brain disease affecting one percent of the population. It is characterized by hallucinations and/or delusions, which are fixed, false beliefs. Paranoid schizophrenia is the most common type and is when a person believes that others are out to get them, even people they do not know. There are good available treatments for schizophrenia and a psychiatrist should be seen.

Sxs: Schizophrenia has positive, negative & cognitive sxs. A person with positive sxs loses touch with reality with hallucinations or delusions. Negative sxs: lack of pleasure; failing to take care of every day functions; losing motivation; inability to carry out plans & isolation. Cognitive symptoms could include problems focusing, memory problems or difficulty understanding what is going on.

Hallucinations: By definition, schizophrenia is about psychosis. Psychosis means the patient is getting external stimuli from the environment through one or more of his or her five senses, that does not objectively exist. In other words there are auditory,visual, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile hallucinations that can be experienced by the patient. Auditory hallucinations, however, are the most common.