A professor of Psychiatry in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Jude Ohaeri, has said that schizophrenia, commonly called madness, is not a spiritual attack and can be treated with early hospital visits.
In an interview, he said, “It is treatable and we should re-emphasise that. The problem with schizophrenia is that people are not brought to hospital on time. They make the sickness become more chronic before they bring them.
“Those brought in time respond faster and better. It is better to talk about it as treatment because when someone goes mad, the first reaction of those around is that it’s a spirit that is disturbing the person and they take the person to spiritual home. It’s not true to say that it is demonic attack. Those are archaic ideas which are not true.
“When they bring them to us in the psychiatric hospitals, we treat with anti-psychotic drugs and they are available. They are very effective to the majority of the patients. Some patients don’t respond quickly and fully but they still respond.
“The first thing we usually do is to calm the patients down because they are usually very aggressive and not cooperative. That’s usually the general scenario. In order to make them to calm down, we talk to them and let them know that we just want to help them and we are not against them. Then, injections can be administered on them which helps them to sleep.
“Lack of sleep is also one of the major symptoms. They make noise in the night, they cry, they laugh and all. After they have woken up, they are taken for a bath and well taken care of.
“Medication is important but there are other parts of treatments like counselling and psychotherapy. We try to look at the risk factors too and find out what could have caused the condition; what is sustaining it or causing a relapse.
“The patients usually get better between four to six weeks and are ready to go home but that’s also a challenge because many leave the hospital and because they are getting better or seem to be fine, they stop taking their medications and stop keeping medical appointments. We usually advise that there should be someone in the family who will agree to stay and care for the person.
“The treatment is both inpatient and outpatient follow-up. The treatment might be for life. There must be a constant follow-up and the treatment is usually a life-long one. Educating the family caregivers is also part of the treatment.”
