Patients with Schizophrenia and/or Epilepsy are dying too young
A recently published study suggests a strikingly high mortality rate for people schizophrenia, epilepsy, or the combination of both illnesses. Many of whom died between 25 and 50. In SARDAA’s campaign for the reclassification of schizophrenia from mental illness to a neurological one, they also present supporting information that, “There are published studies suggesting that patients with schizophrenia die on average 28.5 years sooner than other Americans…Unfortunately, lack of treatment leads to severe negative health outcomes. If correct, this means that individuals with schizophrenia have a life expectancy similar to that of Sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, co-occurring medical conditions, such as heart disease, liver disease, and diabetes, contribute to the higher premature mortality rate among individuals with schizophrenia. Possible reasons for this excess early mortality are increased rates of these medical conditions and under-detection and under-treatment of them” (SARDAA’s reclassification letter to the CDC).
This study specifically says that “The mortality rate for these subjects at age fifty was 3.1 percent for people who did not suffer from epilepsy and schizophrenia; 10.7 percent for people with epilepsy; 17.4 percent for people with schizophrenia; and 27.2 percent for people with both epilepsy and schizophrenia.”
With more than one published study pointing to an epidemic amount of younger people dying from treatable conditions, it’s impossible to dismiss. Schizophrenia has too long been stigmatized and seen as an impossible to treat condition, not unlike epilepsy. This stigmatization should be viewed for what it is, discrimination. Discrimination which is leading many people to early deaths with little consideration from medical professionals. People with schizophrenia have done nothing to deserve to die so much earlier than the general population, and yet, we are. We aren’t dying from schizophrenia (not directly, although death by suicide will claim about 15% of people with schizophrenia). We are dying from diseases which are treatable, curable, and reversible. Although many of these diseases are bought on by poor lifestyle choices, they are still treatable. Physicians choose not to treat people with schizophrenia simply because they have schizophrenia. Physicians choose not to educate and work with patients on healthier lifestyles simply because they have schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia are often over-medicated simply for having schizophrenia, physicians are choosing not to work with patients on correct medication dosing SIMPLY FOR HAVING SCHIZOPHRENIA.
This isn’t stigma, this is discrimination.
This isn’t a misunderstanding, this is the conscious choice not to educate and understand schizophrenia.
WE CAN DO BETTER.
WE HAVE TO DO BETTER.
Katrine M. Andersen, Liselotte V. Petersen, Mogens Vestergaard, Carsten B. Pedersen, Jakob Christensen. Premature mortality in persons with epilepsy and schizophrenia: A population‐based nationwide cohort study. Epilepsia, 2019; DOI: 10.1111/epi.15158
