Considering the history provided and what you can observe in the video, what symptoms of schizophrenia, positive and negative, does Johnny Nash have?
John Nash had two sons before he developed schizophrenia. He passed on both his genius and schizophrenia to his youngest son Johnny Nash. During the interview with Jonny Nash, he mentions first developing symptoms of schizophrenia during his teen years. He would hear voices and interpret them as god. This is known as a positive or hard symptom called delusions. Delusions refers to fixed false beliefs that have no basis in reality. Nash calls this religious insanity. Johnny was often able to regain his full intellectual capacity, but his psychosis would always reoccur.
Johnny Nash would hallucinate as well. He mentions hearing voices that are not their and having visual hallucinations. Auditory hallucination is the most common type of hallucination, it involves hearing sounds, most often voices talking to or about the client. Visual hallucination involves the client seeing images that do not exist at all, such as lights or dead person. Johnny mentions seeing ghost figures and shadows in the air. Anger, withdrawal, isolation, and denial are also common symptoms of schizophrenia.
What medications would be prescribed for Johnny Nash, and why?
In the past electroconvulsive therapy, insulin shock therapy, and psychosurgery were used, but since the creation of chlorpromazine, other treatments modalities are no longer produced. Antipsychotic medications do not cure schizophrenia; rather, they are prescribed primarily for their efficacy in decreasing psychotic symptoms. Antipsychotic medications include the conventional or first-generation antipsychotic medications that are dopamine antagonists and the atypical or second-generation antipsychotic medications that are both dopamine and serotonin antagonists. These are the medications that would be prescribed for Johnny Nash to treat his symptoms of schizophrenia.
Discuss the etiology of schizophrenia. How does it apply to John and Johnny Nash’s case?
The Etiology of schizophrenia is not well understood. The biologic theories of schizophrenia focus on genetic factors, neuroanatomic and neurochemical, and immunovirology. According to Fatani et al. (2017) genetic studies have evidently recognized a genetic origin for the spectrum of disorders. Also, studies have shown that children with one biologic parent with schizophrenia have a 15% risk; the risk rises to 35% if both biologic parents have schizophrenia (Videbeck, 2016, p. 269). Since Johnny’s father John Nash had schizophrenia, it is possible that Johnny may have gotten the illness from his father.
