How To Establish A Schizophrenia Care Plan Following Diagnosis
If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, you may need to prepare for some major changes in your life. This mental health disorder can often be managed effectively, but it may require a considerable amount of effort, organization, and attention to detail. Putting together an appropriate schizophrenia care plan could greatly increase your chances of ensuring a healthy, fulfilling life for yourself or the person for whom you’re caring.
Your care plan will likely need to include regular interactions with a psychiatrist, a therapist, and a primary care doctor. Social workers may also provide helpful assistance. Effective schizophrenia care may involve meeting your social needs and maintaining a thriving connection with your local community as well.
Can schizophrenia be treated?
Receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia can be frightening. Many people assume that individuals with this condition will inevitably experience poor quality of life and severe functional impairment.
While schizophrenia can be a serious mental illness, it can often be effectively treated with the right combination of medication, therapy, and interpersonal support. There’s no known method to completely cure this disorder, but if it’s managed properly, those affected may still be able to lead full and satisfying lives. Some individuals have gone on to achieve significant personal, relational, and career successes following their schizophrenia diagnoses.
Evidence suggests that seeking treatment as soon as possible when signs of schizophrenia manifest may be a significant factor in achieving the best long-term outcomes. If you or someone close to you has been diagnosed with this disease, you may want to start planning for the future as soon as possible.
Below, we’ll review some strategies that may help you create an effective schizophrenia care plan.
Educate yourself about schizophrenia
Learning as much as you can from reputable, evidence-based sources can help you make the right schizophrenia care decisions. Researchers have found that educational interventions can improve a patient’s adherence to a treatment regimen and decrease their odds of relapsing.
Education can also improve the health and happiness of family caregivers while helping them better assist their loved ones.
You may want to start this process by reviewing the description of schizophrenia in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). Schizophrenia can include several different types of symptoms:
- Positive symptoms: Active signs of psychosis, such as hallucinations, delusional beliefs, or disorganized and hard-to-understand speech and behavior
- Negative symptoms: Diminishment of motivation, energy, emotional responsiveness, verbal complexity, enjoyment, and other mental health functions
- Cognitive symptoms: Impairments in mental abilities like concentration, short-term memory, and reasoning
Once you’re familiar with the DSM definition of schizophrenia, you can learn more about this disorder from professional, governmental, or nonprofit organizations focused on mental illness. Reliable sources include the following:
- American Psychiatric Association (APA)
- National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
- Mental Health America (MHA)
Assemble a care team
Living well with schizophrenia is usually easier with help from professionals experienced in working with mental illness. An effective care team may include some or all of the following specialties:
- Primary care provider (PCP): Often a general medicine or family medicine practitioner, a PCP is generally the person the patient sees regarding general health and wellness.
- Psychiatrist: A medical doctor with a specialty in mental health care can both offer psychotherapy and prescribe medication, which may be important since antipsychotics can play a significant role in achieving positive outcomes in schizophrenia.
- Social worker: People with schizophrenia may face difficulties securing housing and employment. A licensed social worker may be able to help them access social services, educational programs, rehabilitation programs, and other forms of assistance.
- Psychologist/therapist/counselor: While a psychiatrist will typically oversee medication management, they may not be able to see you frequently for psychotherapy. Seeing a therapist can help with negative symptoms, such as difficulties with social function, which may not respond to medication.
- Psychiatric nurse: Nurses may be heavily involved in day-to-day psychiatric care in both inpatient and outpatient settings, and many helpful treatment options may still be effective when delivered as nursing interventions. Individuals with severe functional impairments might also benefit from home mental health nursing.
- Family caregivers: While they may not be licensed medical professionals, caring family members can often make a significant difference in helping a person with schizophrenia recover and thrive.
Seek family support
Research suggests that people with schizophrenia usually have better long-term outcomes when their family members communicate and collaborate with treatment providers from the start. If you’ve been diagnosed with this disorder, you may want to let your trusted family members or friends know and ask if they’ll accompany you to some of your appointments with care providers.
A robust family support network can help in a variety of ways. They can:
- Encourage better medication adherence
- Keep an eye out for indicators of relapse
- Provide opportunities for social engagement
- Assist with aspects of everyday life you may find challenging
Reaching out to family and friends for help may also be a good idea if a loved one is experiencing schizophrenia. Caring for a family member with a psychotic disorder can involve significant mental and emotional strain. Studies indicate that robust social support may improve resilience among caregivers.
Develop relapse prevention strategies
People with schizophrenia may experience prolonged periods during which their psychotic symptoms abate. However, relapses in which active symptoms return can be common, and more frequent relapses tend to be associated with a worse long-term prognosis.
Here are a few ways that you or your loved one may be able to prevent relapses:
- Learn the potential warning signs
- Get regular exercise (30+ minutes per day)
- Avoid substance misuse (formerly referred to as substance abuse) and any use of cannabis or psychedelic substances
- Pay attention to unpleasant side effects of prescriptions and communicate with medical professionals about them
- Find healthy outlets for stress
- Ask your doctor whether long-acting, injectable antipsychotic medications may be right for you
Create a relapse care plan
Although the techniques described above may lower the risk of relapse in schizophrenia, there’s still a chance of experiencing increased psychotic symptoms. It may be a good idea to talk with your care team about how to handle this if it happens.
Creating a psychiatric advance directive (PAD) may help. This can be defined as a legal document spelling out the wishes of an individual if their mental illness symptoms prevent them from being able to make rational decisions. Even if your state doesn’t allow for advance directives, developing a relapse plan with the help of your care team may help you avoid problems during a schizophrenia relapse.
You might also want to prepare a list of key information that caregivers, doctors, and first responders can quickly review in a crisis, potentially including the following:
- Contact information of care providers and case managers
- Emergency contacts like trusted friends and family members
- Information about your diagnosis
- Names of medications you’re taking
- Information about what has helped with past relapses
Find ways to stay socially and mentally engaged
Regular social interaction may help people with schizophrenia achieve better outcomes. Not only can it provide a support network that may help with the stresses of daily life, but it may also protect and improve cognitive function. People with this condition tend to have a better prognosis when they stay connected with their communities and friends.
Seeking out structured social activities, such as clubs and teams, can help, and so can any hobbies involving regular contact with other people. If you or your family member with schizophrenia can maintain steady employment, this can also be a valuable source of cognitive stimulation and social connection.
This may seem easier said than done. Many people with schizophrenia experience impaired social interaction, related both to dysfunction in social cognition and to stigma or discomfort from other people. However, educational programs like social skills training (SST) may improve social abilities. Many people with psychotic disorders can also benefit from supported employment (SE), in which they receive assistance from professionals in finding and maintaining steady work.
Peer support groups could also be a helpful option, both for people with mental illness and their caregivers. Meeting regularly with others who have similar experiences can provide a sense of community as well as an opportunity to get advice and learn coping skills from those with more experience.
Engage in regular psychotherapy
Meeting regularly with a licensed therapist can have many benefits for people with schizophrenia, including a constructive outlet for stress, mental health support, and monitoring for relapse warning signs. If the realities of your condition make it hard for you to see a therapist in person, online therapy could be a good alternative. It’s often easier to attend sessions remotely rather than face-to-face.
Online therapy may assist with obstacles like depression and cognitive difficulties. Some research suggests it may also be able to improve psychotic symptoms as well, although individuals experiencing acute psychosis may need to seek in-person care. A 2017 trial found that an internet-based cognitive behavioral therapy program typically reduced auditory hallucinations in individuals with schizophrenia.
Takeaway
A comprehensive schizophrenia care plan may involve several kinds of assistance, including psychiatric care, vocational training, and case management. Accounting for healthy social interaction and relapse prevention can also be valuable. It may be a good idea to think about how family caregivers can receive social and mental health support as well. Online therapy may be a convenient way to seek professional insight and guidance.
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