Jan. 8, 2002Contact: Kara Gavin, [email protected]
Carrie Hagen, [email protected], 734-764-2220
For immediate release
Movie's release brings schizophrenia's realities into public view, even as research promises new treatment options, U-M expert says
Release of "A Beautiful Mind" helps bust myths about condition that affects 1 percent of population
ANN ARBOR, MI - Across the country, movie critics and audiences are applauding "A Beautiful Mind" for its moving portrayal of a mathematician struggling with schizophrenia. But no matter how much money the film makes, or how many Academy Award nominations it receives, a noted University of Michigan schizophrenia expert says it has achieved a higher purpose: raising the public's awareness about this common but overlooked mental illness.
The movie's depiction of Princeton professor and Nobel Prize winner John Nash may not be exactly medically up-to-date. But its presentation of a schizophrenic who is able to work and have relationships, and get help from medications and social support, is groundbreaking, says Rajiv Tandon, M.D., a psychiatrist who heads the U-M Health System's schizophrenia program.
Tandon hopes the film will give the public a chance to focus on the fact that schizophrenia is a serious brain disease with biological causes, to learn about the current state of schizophrenia treatment and research, and to understand the hope for the future that he and others hold.
"There are so many myths about schizophrenia in the public's mind, and so little understanding of how far we've come in helping those who have it, and the challenges we still face," Tandon says. "This is despite the fact that schizophrenia affects as many as one in 100 Americans, and often strikes during the best years of their lives, in late adolescence and early adulthood."
Tandon, who has met Nash and read his biography, calls him a "remarkable man" who has slowly emerged from the worst phase of his illness, as many schizophrenics do later in life. The movie, based upon the book, chronicles Nash's life from his achievements in the 1950s as a brilliant young mathematician, through the hallucinations and delusions that plagued him for 25 years starting in 1959, and into recent times when he was able to resume his research.
Nash's experiences, including the timing of his illness' onset during his early adulthood, the withdrawal and reduced thinking capacity that it brought, and his failure to get much relief from many medications, make him a typical schizophrenic, Tandon says, though his intellect was far from typical. Even still, Tandon notes, the disease knocked many points off Nash's IQ.
Like Nash, most schizophrenics experience three kinds of symptoms, often in differing severity and patterns throughout their lives, explains Tandon, a professor in the UMHS Department of Psychiatry.
"Positive" symptoms, named for their effect of creating new perceptions in the brain, include bizarre, delusional beliefs, as well as hallucinations and suspiciousness. "Negative" symptoms, which stem from alterations in normal brain activity, include blunted emotion and motivation, reduced ability to experience pleasure, and social withdrawal. And "cognitive", or intellectual, symptoms, reduce a person's ability to process complex information or plan actions.
Schizophrenia is not the same thing as split- or multiple-personality disorder, Tandon explains, and, though violent behavior sometimes arises from extreme cases of paranoia, schizophrenics are no more violent than the rest of the population. These myths and others, such as the old-fashioned belief that the disease is caused by faulty parenting, are falling by the wayside.
As Nash's story illustrates, psychiatrists have struggled for decades to find treatments that can lessen schizophrenia's symptoms, even while they search for the root causes in the brain's chemistry. Different medications and social support strategies have come into use - and fallen out of it - over the years. More are now in development or in clinical trials.
With proper help, Tandon says, many schizophrenics can perform well mentally and socially, and even be productive at work. "Despite myths that say otherwise, these are humans, capable of functioning and contributing," he emphasizes. "There are limits to their ability to lead lives as full as others, but they are able to have relationships and live with their disability."
Still, many schizophrenics still get imperfect help from current treatments, or go undiagnosed or untreated - raising the risk of permanent brain damage that could have been prevented with early intervention. Others can't get proper psychosocial services due to insurance limits.
The situation is changing, though. UMHS, through the Washtenaw Community Health Organization formed with the local community mental health agency, is using the strengths of both entities to help schizophrenics get the best treatment possible for their mental and physical illnesses. And UMHS is sharing its rehabilitation strategy, which re-trains schizophrenia patients in work and social skills, with centers around Michigan. Tandon is also working with the National Schizophrenia Foundation, based in Michigan, on public awareness and patient education.
Tandon and his colleagues at the U-M and beyond see more hope on the horizon in the form of brain research under way at UMHS and other centers. Through brain scan imaging, neurochemical studies, and clinical trials of medications that affect different aspects of the brain's chemistry, they're pushing science's understanding of schizophrenia forward.
That new knowledge - including a better understanding of what specific alterations in brain chemistry are common among schizophrenics, and what treatment strategies might work best for individual patients - is sure to help patients soon, Tandon says. For now, he hopes Nash's story will give the public a clearer picture of the disease, and the importance of defeating it.
Editors and reporters: Dr. Tandon is available for interviews on schizophrenia, including U-M research and treatment, and the success of the Washtenaw County Health Organization in helping schizophrenics. Representatives of the National Schizophrenia Foundation, and people with schizophrenia, are also available via arrangement with UMHS Public Relations.
###
RSS