Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-t27h7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-22T21:02:44.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Age Disorientation in Chronic Schizophrenia is Associated with Global Intellectual Impairment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

P. F. Liddle  and
T. J. Crow
P. F. Liddle
Affiliation:
Littlemore Hospital, Oxford
T. J. Crow
Affiliation:
Head of the Division of Psychiatry, Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park Hospital, Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3UJ
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

From a population of long-stay patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia according to the St Louis criteria, a group of 21 patients with ‘age disorientation’ was selected, and compared on a series of tests of intellect and learning capacity with a matched control group of 21 schizophrenic patients without this feature. The age-disorientated patients demonstrated substantial impairments on tests of orientation and general knowledge, associational learning, the ‘famous personality’ test, tests of vocabulary and aphasia, Raven's matrices, the digit–symbol substitution test and the mental test score. We conclude that profound ‘organic-type’ psychological deficits (global impairment of intellectual function associated with temporal disorientation) undoubtedly occur in chronic schizophrenia. The findings on the ‘famous personality’ test and the Peabody vocabulary test did not exclude the possibility that such impairment arises early in life, at a time preceding the onset of the illness which leads to hospital admission.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 144 , Issue 2 , February 1984 , pp. 193 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bleuler, E. (1950) Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias (trans. Zinkin, J.). New York: International Universities Press.Google Scholar
Crow, T. J. & Johnstone, E. C. (1980) Dementia praecox and schizophrenia: was Bleuler wrong? Journal of the Royal College of Physicians, 14, 238–40.Google ScholarPubMed
Crow, T. J. & Mitchell, W. S. (1975) Subjective age in chronic schizophrenia: evidence for a sub-group of patients with defective learning capacity. British Journal of Psychiatry, 126, 360–3.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crow, T. J. & Stevens, M. (1978) Age disorientation in chronic schizophrenia: the nature of the cognitive deficit. British Journal of Psychiatry, 133, 137–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Denham, M. J. & Jeffreys, P. M. (1972) Routine mental testing in the elderly. Modern Geriatrics, 2, 275–9.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. M. (1959) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Minneapolis, Minnesota: American Guidance Service Inc.Google Scholar
Feighner, J. P., Robins, E., Guze, S. B., Woodruff, R. A., Winokur, G. & Munoz, R. (1972) Diagnostic criteria for use in psychiatric research. Archives of General Psychiatry, 26, 57–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heaton, R. K., Baade, L. E. & Johnson, K. L. (1978) Neuropsychological test results associated with psychiatric disorders in adults. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 141–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnstone, E. C., Crow, T. J., Frith, C. D., Stevens, M., Kreel, L. & Husband, J. (1978) The dementia of dementia praecox. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 57, 305–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaplan, E., Goodglass, H. & Weintraub, S. (1976) Shortened Version of the Boston Naming Test. Boston VA Hospital (unpublished manual).Google Scholar
Klonoff, H., Fibiger, H. C. & Hutton, G. H. (1970) Neuropsychological problems in chronic schizophrenia. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 150, 291–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraepelin, E. (1919) Dementia Praecox and Paraphrenia (translated by Barclay, R. M. and Robertson, G. M.). New York: R. E. Krieger.Google Scholar
Owens, D. G. C. & Johnstone, E. C. (1980) The disabilities of chronic schizophrenia—their nature and the factors contributing to their development. British Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 384–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quitkin, F., Rifkin, A. & Klein, D. F. (1976) Neurologic soft signs in schizophrenia and character disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry, 33, 845–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Raven, J. C. (1965) Progressive Matrices. London: H. K. Lewis.Google Scholar
Shallice, T. & Evans, M. E. (1978) The involvement of the frontal lobes in cognitive estimation. Cortex, 14, 294–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, J. M. & Oswald, W. T. (1976) Subjective age in chronic schizophrenia. British Journal of Psychiatry, 128, 100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stevens, M., Crow, T. J., Bowman, M. J. & Coles, E. C. (1978) Age disorientation in schizophrenia: a constant prevalence of 25 per cent in a chronic mental hospital population? British Journal of Psychiatry, 133, 130–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, M. (1979) Famous personality test: a test for remote memory. Bulletin of the British Psychological Society, 32, 211.Google Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1958) The Measurement and Appraisal of Adult Intelligence, 4th ed. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.