Dementia praecox revisited. Age disorientation, mental status, and ventricular enlargement.
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.
Goldberg
T E
TE
Clinical Brain Disorders Branch, Neurosciences Research Center at St Elizabeths, Washington DC 20032.
Kleinman
J E
JE
Daniel
D G
DG
Myslobodsky
M S
MS
Ragland
J D
JD
Weinberger
D R
DR
D000328:Adult; D014695:Cerebral Ventriculography; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D003702:Delusions / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009949:Orientation; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed