Around half a million Australians live with the debilitating impact of severe mental illnesses , including schizophrenia. The health, economic and societal implications are immense, yet current medical treatments for schizophrenia are based on 75-year-old science, are not effective for enough patients and often bring intolerable side effects. Login or signup to continue reading Meanwhile, Australia has a growing number of leaders across drug development, psychiatry, psychology and public health, with the combined expertise to not only address the societal issue of severe mental illness, but also to place Australia at the forefront of this field.
Among mental health conditions, schizophrenia remains a veritable outlier, a mental health condition maligned by inaccurate tropes in film and television and feared and misunderstood by the general public. Even the etymology of the term "schizophrenia", meaning "split mind", evokes thoughts of split personalities that do not reflect the experiences of those living with schizophrenia. It is a complex brain disorder, whose root cause even now is not fully understood.
Genetics play a role, but factors as disparate as pregnancy and birth complications, childhood trauma, migration, social isolation, and urbanicity also influence risk. Unlike dementia, it is a disorder primarily of the young, most likely to arise between the ages of 16 and 40. However, it can equally rob people of quality of life - studies estimate that Australians with sch.
