Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of case descriptions
- Preface
- Part I Delusional disorders and delusions: introductory aspects
- Part II Descriptive and clinical aspects of paranoia/delusional disorder
- Part III ‘Paranoid spectrum’ illnesses which should be included in the category of delusional disorder
- 7 Paraphrenia and paranoid schizophrenia
- 8 ‘Late’ paraphrenia and late onset schizophrenia
- 9 Delusional misidentification syndrome
- 10 Folie à deux: an accompaniment of illnesses with delusions
- Part IV Illnesses which are liable to be misdiagnosed as delusional disorders
- Part V Treatment of delusional disorder and overall conclusions
- Index
8 - ‘Late’ paraphrenia and late onset schizophrenia
from Part III - ‘Paranoid spectrum’ illnesses which should be included in the category of delusional disorder
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of case descriptions
- Preface
- Part I Delusional disorders and delusions: introductory aspects
- Part II Descriptive and clinical aspects of paranoia/delusional disorder
- Part III ‘Paranoid spectrum’ illnesses which should be included in the category of delusional disorder
- 7 Paraphrenia and paranoid schizophrenia
- 8 ‘Late’ paraphrenia and late onset schizophrenia
- 9 Delusional misidentification syndrome
- 10 Folie à deux: an accompaniment of illnesses with delusions
- Part IV Illnesses which are liable to be misdiagnosed as delusional disorders
- Part V Treatment of delusional disorder and overall conclusions
- Index
Summary
Introduction
Schizophrenia often occurs at an early age and the patient can then live well into old age, displaying persistent psychotic symptoms of various sorts. This is not controversial. However, the idea that schizophrenia could appear for the first time in middle age or among the elderly has been the subject of considerable argument for many years.
Nowadays there seems to be much wider acceptance that schizophrenia like illnesses can originate at any time from the teens onwards. It appears that, the older the age of onset, the more will the case resemble paranoid schizophrenia and the less significant will be the genetic component. Unhappily, there are still arguments, often based on ideological rather than scientific grounds, as to whether late onset cases should be regarded as schizophrenia or as something else (Stoudemire and Riether, 1987).
In the recent past, it has become common in the United States to diagnose schizophrenia of first onset in the elderly. This also happens to some extent in the United Kingdom, but notable arguments continue there about the differentiation of late paraphrenia from old-age schizophrenia. It probably makes little difference to the type of treatment which is applied if the case is called one or the other. However, if late paraphrenia is indeed paraphrenia as described in Chapter 7, but simply coming on for the first time in older age, then its prognosis might be somewhat better than that of a case of schizophrenia, at least in the short- to mid-term (Naguib, 1991).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Delusional DisorderParanoia and Related Illnesses, pp. 168 - 177Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999