Keeping Jani Alive: The Perils Of Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia

The Dangers of Schizophrenia Medications

For many, medications can successfully control psychotic episodes, but nothing can prevent the disorder from developing and there is no cure. As children grow, the schizophrenia persists, slowly robbing their minds of their cognitive abilities.

"People with childhood-onset are more impaired because they haven't gone through normal developmental processes, unlike people afflicted in their 20s, who have acomplished some of those developmental tasks," said Dr. Dost Ongur, clinical director of the Psychiatric Disorders Division at McLean Hospital in Boston. "Schizophrenia leads people to live very limited lives. In general, the prognosis for schizophrenia is poor."

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As children become more aware of the difference between themselves and those around them they constantly struggle between what they know to be reality for themselves and what they are told is the true reality. Medications and therapy are meant to help make that distinction, but it is easier for people with childhood-onset schizophrenia to regress back to their own world.

"Kids are much more likely to simply respond to the delusions," said Dr. Donald Condie, assistant professor of child psychology at Harvard Medical School, and adults are better able to talk their way out of them. "Therefore, the cognitive behavior therapy you can try with adults won't work with kids."

Stunted Devlopment Common for Schizophrenic Children

Lacking the proper development, children with schizophrenia can develop maladaptive coping strategies as they get older -- avoiding difficult tasks, refusing to go to class or speak with their teacher if they have trouble, and self-defeating attitudes that keep them from trying new things.

"It's very tough on a family seeing a child whose development is derailed very early," Condie said.

People with schizophrenia are at high risk for suicide, which accounts for about one in five deaths in this population. This impulse includes children, although it is less likely that they will complete suicide because they are under constant supervision. Schofield said Jani has said she wants to die and has attempted to take her own life several times, including an attempt to jump out a window, choking herself with her hands, and saying she will crawl into the oven.