Patient Care Plan for Schizophrenia

A patient with schizophrenia can be unpredictable and unreliable. Most schizophrenia patients will go off their medications at least once during "good" periods, which inevitably results in the patient getting sicker and his symptoms becoming increasingly out-of-control. The long-reaching aftermath touches family, friends and co-workers alike. Building and enacting a care plan can help to keep the patient organized, accountable and on track.

What Schizophrenia Is

• Schizophrenia is a psychiatric illness which usually appears in a patient in her late teens and throughout her 20s, and it affects more men than women. It is considered a life-long disease which psychiatrists seek to treat, not cure.

Symptoms of Schizophrenia

• Schizophrenia is characterized by strong delusions, sometimes paranoid. The patient may have delusions of grandeur or believe he is something he is not (a superhero, doctor, etc.) There may be marked visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory (smelling and tasting) hallucinations. Speech may be disorganized or incoherent. Sometimes a person with schizophrenia becomes catatonic, which means his limbs may become rigid, he may appear to be in a stupor, there may be complete inactivity and the patient may seem as if he "isn't there."

Patient Awareness and Involvement in Treatment

• Treatment plans are normally designed by psychiatrists or psychiatric nurses. Before they lay out their plans, they must first decipher whether or not the patient can actively participate in the plan, or if she needs to be completely supported. This depends on the severity of the schizophrenia. Dr. Ken Duckworth, medical director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and a professor at Harvard University, says that about 50 percent of patients are unable to understand they even have an illness.

The Goals of a Care Plan

• Treatment plans include making sure the patient is taking his medication and taking it properly, and monitoring the individual's bloodwork to make sure there is not too much or too little of his medications in his system. Because schizophrenia is such a disruptive illness, psychotherapy may be deemed necessary to help the individual cope with his diagnosis and help the people in his life cope and learn more about schizophrenia.

Crisis: Part of the Game Plan

• Psychotic episodes are an unpleasant but real part of schizophrenia. Therefore, the treatment plan must also include a crisis plan. The most important aspect of the crisis plan is determining whether the person is a danger to herself or others, and how to stop her once she has started harming people. The patient will be involved as much as possible, and the plan will be documented and shared with both the patient and her support system. One person in the individual's life will be designated as the "go-to" person in a crisis. A list of the patient's medications will be written up, as will a list of any facilities the individual has been admitted to, and other people who have shown support in the past. There are two goals: to stop a crisis from happening if possible, and to safely bring closure to a crisis that has already begun.