Centre for Policy on Ageing



Schizophrenia with onset at the extremes of adult life
Author(s)	David J Castle, Simon Wessely, Robert Howard
Journal title	International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, vol 12, no 7, July 1997
Pages	pp 712-717
Keywords	Schizophrenia ; Age groups [elderly] ; Comparison.
Annotation	The authors report the epidemiology of late onset schizophrenia in a case register sample, and include a systematic analysis of differences between cases with a very early and very late onset of illness. Very late onset patients (aged 60 and over) were, compared to their very early onset counterparts (aged under 25), more likely to be female, have good pre-morbid functioning and developmental history, and to exhibit persecutory delusions and hallucinations. They were less likely to have negative schizophrenic symptoms, to have positive family history of schizophrenia, or to have suffered pregnancy or birth complications. The findings suggest that it is premature to consider very early or very late onset schizophrenia to be merely different manifestations of the same illness.
Accession Number	CPA-970807255 A
Classmark	ELK: BB: 48
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...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.