Aging and outcome in schizophrenia.
OBJECTIVE
Controversy exists about long-term outcome of schizophrenia, but few studies have compared older out-patients to normal subjects. We sought to examine the relationship of age to clinical features, psychopathology, movement abnormalities, quality of well-being, and everyday functioning in schizophrenia out-patients and normal comparison subjects, and to further characterize these outcomes in elderly schizophrenia out-patients.


METHODS
A total of 290 out-patients and 144 comparison subjects, aged 40-85 years, underwent comprehensive assessments.


RESULTS
Among patients, aging was associated with decreased psychopathology, even after controlling for duration of illness. There was no accelerated aging-related decline on any measure in the patients. Yet, elderly patients were more impaired than comparison subjects on various measures.


CONCLUSIONS
The course of schizophrenia in late life appears stable, but most elderly patients remain symptomatic and impaired. Our findings dispute notions of either progressive deterioration or marked improvement in aging schizophrenia out-patients.
Jeste
D V
DV
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA. djeste@ucsd.edu
Twamley
E W
EW
Eyler Zorrilla
L T
LT
Golshan
S
S
Patterson
T L
TL
Palmer
B W
BW
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D002140:California; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012559:Schizophrenia; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index