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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Schizophrenia with onset after age 50 years
— 1. Phenomenology and risk factors | | Author(s) | H Brodaty, P Sachdev, N Rose |
| Journal title | British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 175, November 1999 |
| Pages | pp 410-415 |
| Keywords | Schizophrenia. |
| Annotation | There is disagreement as to whether late-onset schizophrenia (LOS) is a delayed manifestation of the more common early-onset schizophrenia (EOS). This study examined whether LOS and EOS can be differentiated by their phenomenology and risk factors to their development. A sample of 27 patients with LOS, 30 patients with EOS and 34 control subjects were systematically assessed. Results showed that, premorbidly, both groups of subjects with schizophrenia had personality traits that were different from controls but not from each other. The EOS subjects had more family members with a history of psychiatric illness or schizophrenia and less hearing impairment than the other two groups, which did not differ from each other. Clinically, LOS and EOS subjects were similar, except that EOS subjects had more negative symptom scores, tended to have more delusions of guilt/sin and of being controlled, and more formal thought disorder, and had significantly poorer instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). The study concluded that schizophrenia can occur for the first time in late life, and that the similarities in the phenomenology of LOS and EOS outweighed the differences. (AKM). |
| Accession Number | CPA-991201225 A |
| Classmark | ELK |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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