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readthenotes1today at 2:06 PM3 repliesview on HN

That would be an incredible cure and raises the ethical question of how to get schizophrenic people well enough to understand that they need it.


Replies

guerrillatoday at 2:11 PM

You just do your best and leave them alone otherwise.

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H8crilAtoday at 2:19 PM

This seems to be mainly about the so called negative symptoms, not positive symptoms (like hallucinations or delusions). While it is often hard to argue with people about their positive symptoms in schizophrenia or in mania, pretty much nobody who has negative symptoms wants to have them. The fact that antipsychotics do little about the negative symptoms is probably the biggest pain of schizophrenia sufferers - and they are aware of that.

Also, and this depends on the jurisdiction, but people can be forced to take psychiatric medication against their will. Or even forced to go through a treatment like ECT, for example when presenting with strong and dangerous mania. BTW, ECT has an extremely unfair popular opinion, it's one of the best treatments in all of psychiatry. It could even be that it is impossible to get a response from the patient, for example if they are catatonic and don't budge within a reasonable time - you just inject them with benzodiazepines, as this is a serious condition if left to last a long time.

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