This article speaks about story of Norma and her 18 year old son David who was diagnosed as being in a Psychotic episode, which was detected early, before it spiraled into a serious mental disorder such as Schizophrenia.
The mother immediately noticed that something was very wrong when her son arrived home from his school at 3 am in the night and exhibited strange behavior.
Not only was there a disheveled appearance, and ‘spacing out’, he was also saying things that made no sense and not responding to questions. Even something as seemingly innocuous as playing a CD in repeat mode, rang alarm bells.
Since there is no blood test or any definitive test to detect and confirm mental illness, it can be difficult to detect and diagnose. For this reason, parents with teens have to be very vigilant and watchful, to detect subtle signs of trouble to come.
Early detection means that the problem has chances of being arrested before it gets more severe and the illness is still at a stage where interventions work better.
Scientists have identified something called a “psychosis risk syndrome,’’ which offers forewarning of problems such as schizophrenia, before an actual diagnosis can be made.
