Mental Disorders

Our presentation is on selected mental disorders and abnormal personalities in which we explain in
short the characteristics of the particular disorder.
In this presentation, we are focusing on six major disorders and we explain their symptoms, causes
and if possible cure. We also give examples of movies whose themes are based on these disorders
directly or indirectly.
Schizophrenia:
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that makes it hard to tell the difference between what is real and
not real; Think clearly; Have normal emotional responses; Act normally in social situations. Symptoms
begin typically in young adulthood and about 0.30.7% of people are affected during their lifetime.
Schizophrenia is often described in terms of positive and negative symptoms. Positive symptoms are
those that most individuals do not normally experience but are present in people with schizophrenia.
They can include delusions, disordered thoughts and speech, and tactile, auditory,visual
olfactory and gustatory hallucinations, typically regarded as manifestations of psychosis.
Hallucinations are also typically related to the content of the delusional theme. Positive symptoms
generally respond well to medication.
Negative symptoms are deficits of normal emotional responses or of other thought processes, and
respond less well to medication. They commonly include flat expressions or little emotion, poverty of
expression, inability to experience pleasure, lack of desire to form relationships, and lack of
motivation. Negative symptoms appear to contribute more to poor quality of life, functional ability, and
the burden on others than do positive symptoms. People with greater negative symptoms often have
a history of poor adjustment before the onset of illness, and response to medication is often limited.
Environment, Genetic factors and substance use play a major role in its diagnosis.
John Nah, an American mathematician and joint winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Economics had
schizophrenia. His life was the subject of the 2001Academy Award-winning film A Beautiful Mind.
Parveen Bhabhi, famous Bollywood actress is also rumoured to have schizophrenia when she
accused many celebrities like Amitabh Bachan, Bill Clinton to have attempted to kill her.

Dyslexia:
Dyslexia or Developmental reading disorder is a reading disability that occurs when the brain does not
properly recognize and process certain symbols. It is characterized by difficulty with learning to read
fluently and with accurate comprehension despite normal or above-average intelligence. This includes
difficulty with phonological awareness and decoding, processing speed, orthographic coding, auditory
short term memory, language skills/verbal comprehension, and/or rapid naming.
Dyslexia is the most common learning difficulty and most recognized reading disorder.
In early childhood, early symptoms that correlate with a later diagnosis of dyslexia include delays in
speech,letter reversal or mirror writing, difficulty knowing left from right and directions, and being
easily distracted by background noise.

This pattern of early distractibility is partially explained by the
co-occurrence of dyslexia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Although each disorder occurs
in approximately 5% of children, 25-40% of children with either dyslexia or ADHD meet criteria for the
other disorder.
The theories of dyslexia are still evolving though psychologists regard genetics and neuroanatomy as
the reasons of dyslexia.
It has been the main theme for the movies like Taare Zameen par where the child is affected by
dyslexia and the parents have difficulty identifying it. The movie focuses on the fact that children
affected with dyslexia can also lead a normal life.
Abhishek Bachan, famous actor and son of Amitabh Bachan is one of the celebrities affected with
dyslexia.

Autism:
Autism is a developmental disorder that appears in the first 3 years of life, and affects the brain's
normal development of social and communication skills. The exact causes of these abnormalities
remain unknown. But genetics seem to play an important role. Language abnormalities are present
more often in relatives of autistic children.
The child with autism has difficulties in Social interactions and verbal and nonverbal communication.
The child has to be suspected with autism if he/she does not represent their ages ideal behaviour.
People with autism are overly sensitive to sight, touch, hearing, smell or taste. They may even go to
depression with a slight change in routine.
Their typical behaviour includes intense tantrums, getting stuck on a single topic, short attention span,
narrow interests, overactive or passive, using repetitive body movements etc.
An early, intensive, appropriate treatment program will greatly improve the outlook for most young
children with autism. Most programs will build on the interests of the child in a highly structured
schedule of constructive activities. Visual aids are often helpful.
Treatment is most successful when it is geared toward the child's particular needs. An experienced
specialist or team should design the program for the individual child. Some of the tests include
Applied Behavioural analysis (ABA), physical therapy, medications, speech language therapy etc
Movies like My Name Is Khan have underlined theme of autism in them. In this movie the lead actor,
Shah Rukh Khan plays the role where he is affected by autism and shows his behaviour traits.