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Dementia Praecox Revisited

Age Disorientation, Mental Status, and Ventricular Enlargement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Terry E. Goldberg ,
Joel E. Kleinman ,
David G. Daniel ,
Michael S. Myslobodsky ,
John D. Ragland  and
Daniel R. Weinberger
Terry E. Goldberg*
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neurosciences Research Center at St Elizabeths, 2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, Washington DC 20032, USA
Joel E. Kleinman
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neurosciences Research Center at St Elizabeths, 2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, Washington DC 20032, USA
David G. Daniel
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neurosciences Research Center at St Elizabeths, 2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, Washington DC 20032, USA
Michael S. Myslobodsky
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neurosciences Research Center at St Elizabeths, 2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, Washington DC 20032, USA
John D. Ragland
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neurosciences Research Center at St Elizabeths, 2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, Washington DC 20032, USA
Daniel R. Weinberger
Affiliation:
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Intramural Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health, Neurosciences Research Center at St Elizabeths, 2700 Martin Luther King Avenue, Washington DC 20032, USA
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

Thirty-nine patients with DSM–III diagnoses of schizophrenia were examined for age disorientation, an inability to produce one's correct chronological age upon request. Six patients were age-disoriented and demented (as defined by Mini-Mental State evaluation), while two patients had delusions concerning their age, but were not demented. Age-disoriented, demented patients had very large cerebral ventricles and very low Mini-Mental State scores. This group differed on the cognitive and neuroanatomic variables from other demented, but not age-disoriented, patients, as well as from non-demented patients who were age-oriented. The age-disoriented patients appeared to be at an extreme end of the dementia spectrum in schizophrenia.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 153 , Issue 2 , August 1988 , pp. 187 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1988 

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