Many are hopeful that a cure for schizophrenia will be found in the near future but this area of medical research receives few funding dollars and does not seem to be a top priority for the medical community at the moment. Most treatments for this condition involve the use of antipsychotic medications and therapies that utilize psycho-social and cognitive techniques. Schizphrenia can be especially devastating, to those who have this mental disorder, to their families, and to society as a whole. If left untreated this mental illness can cause delusions, hallucinations, aggression, and even physical violence as a result of the disorganized thinking and brain function that occurs.
One of the most common theories right now about how schizophrenia develops is that this mental disorder results from a certain genetic predisposition along with stress and environmental exposure to certain substances during the pregnancy period. Several important genes have been isolated, and damage to these genes is believed to contribute to the development of schizophrenia in an individual. The genes identified so far are suspected to be just a small percentage of the genes that may be involved with this mental disorder. In males schizophrenia generally appears between the ages of 15 through 25, in females this mental disorder tends to occur later and may affect women even after the age of 30.
