By Shavonne Potts
spotts@salisburypost.com
Note: Schizophrenia is a serious illness that can be marked by hallucinations and other sensory disturbances. This story is for information purposes and not to be used as a diagnosis.
Imagine a world where every day you hear voices in your head that won’t go away. You feel that someone is telling you to do something, but are not sure you can trust them. You see bugs crawling on you that no one else sees.
This is the world of a person with schizophrenia. It is a mental illness that can be confusing to the patient and the observer.
Many of those patients in this area go to Daymark Recovery Services in Rowan County where they receive counseling and treatment to achieve optimum health and recovery.
The agency held a program Thursday at the Rowan Center to help people understand the illness and the people affected by it.
Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a pharmaceutical sales and research company based in New Jersey, created Mindstorm, a virtual hallucination.
Mindstorm is a 3-D program that participants watch that simulates a severe episode of auditory and visual hallucinations.
The video is used as part of training for mental health providers, family of schizophrenic patients and law enforcement as these are the people who deal most often with people who have symptoms.
This is the first time the Mindstorm video and the Janssen sponsored program has been featured in Rowan County.
Schizophrenia deals with a person’s senses ó visual, audible, olfactory and tactile or touch. The patient can experience hallucinations through any number of these senses.
“Their thinking gets deranged or delusional. They really believe things that are not true,” said Dr. Amruthavalli Muthu. He is a psychiatrist at Daymark.
Muthu said the common misconception about schizophrenia is that it is just like the movies.
“People have the wrong impression. It is not like an old film,” she said.
It is also not the same illness as dissociative identity disorder or multiple personality disorder.
By bringing the Mindstorm video to Rowan County, “it is a way to educate the community that this is just an illness like any other,” Muthu said.
There are certain chemicals in the brain that naturally secrete and when that is lost, the person simply isn’t able to “think straight.”
“It is hard for them to distinguish between fantasy and reality,” she said.
Some of Muthu’s patients exhibited symptoms early in their teens.
The cause is still unknown, but advancements have been made to teach people how to cope with the illness through lifestyle changes and medications.
Medicines control the symptoms, but do not cure the illness, Muthu said.
Older patients who have lived with the illness can sometimes feel cured because they have learned to control mechanisms.
Schizophrenia is not a dangerous illness, Muthu said. However drugs and alcohol can make psychosis worse.
Daymark encourages patients to lead healthy, alcohol and drug-free lives.
Daymark also makes it easier for patients to live with the illness by establishing a separate waiting area for patients with schizophrenia.
Staff also check on patients with a home visit to ensure they are taking their medications. Medications are now beginning to be dispensed monthly instead of bi-weekly. Patients receive injectables, which is easier for the staff to monitor than it is for the patient to take a pill every day, said Center Director Sam Young.
Some local pharmacists will deliver medications to a patient.
Muthu explained it can be difficult for a person with schizophrenia to go to a drug store. They may be bothered by the many sounds they hear, the crowd of people and may in general be anxious about going.
Patients who become incarcerated call Daymark staff so they can tell jail personnel what medicines they should be taking.
Daymark especially wants law enforcement to know that people with schizophrenia sometimes are confused with people who are high or under the influence.
Watching the Mindstorm video and taking classes taught by Daymark staff for Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training can help them know how to deal with patients, Muthu said.
“This gives them the opportunity to have a brief period in what patients feel,” Muthu said.
Amy Kirk, with Southern Piedmont Community Care Plan, through Novant Health, is one of those participants who watched the video.
“I thought it was going to be more hallucinogenic, but it was way more auditory,” she said.
The video simulated the smell of coffee, the wind on the participants’ face and voices in the ear via headphones.
“It puts you in and lets you experience it inside and out,” Kirk said.
This experience helps Kirk do her job.
“It increases empathy and awareness. It helps you understand what they are describing,” she said.
For more information about Mindstorm, contact Janssen at www.janssen.com. For more information about Daymark and the services it provides, call 704-633-3616.