Sedatives work best since they help them relax about all the horrible things they see happening ~ only in their minds. The current idea is they are mostly acting out in a rational way against their hallucinatory voices and images, much as anyone else would.
Once the gene tests are in place we can quickly differentiate between the schizos and the brain damaged folks ~ for whatever good that will do.
My son-in-law has a schizophrenic brother, who is 17 years older than he is. It’s a real problem because his father just died and the brother is left to care for the mother, who he sometimes wants to kill because she had him hospitalized one time and he blames her for allowing the doctors to pull the plug on the father last month. It’s a nightmare. The nurses and social workers at the hospital, where the father was being treated, all told him that the brother cannot be allowed to care for the mother, but the brother is 51 years old. He hears voices and holds conversations with the voices. He has tried several times to kill the mother, but was pulled off by either the father or the brother. He hasn’t been on meds for years.
I was looking up help for him and I found that there is some new drug that they inject once a month, no more daily pills. That is according to the public health service in Walnut Creek, CA, where he lives.