중년기 이후에 발병한 정신분열증에 대한 고찰

A Retrospective Study on Late Onset Schizophrenia

It has been thought that the onset of schizophrenia is limited to youth. However, many European investigatiors have reported the occurrence of schizophrenia in later life. They have noted that the symptoms found in late-onset schizophrenia are not different from those noted in patients with early-onset schizophrenia. With the advent of the DSM-IIIR( 1987), there has been a renewal of interest in schizophrenia that arise for the first time in late life. This study was designed to examine some characteristic findings on demographics, clinical features, and treatment response in late-onset schizophrenia. The subjects consisted of 36 patients with late-onset(after 40) schizophrena and 72 patients with early-onset schizophrenia(before 40) by DSM-III-R who were admittd to the Department o f Neuropshcyiatry o f Kangnam St. Mary’s Hospital, Catholic University Medical College from March 1982 to July 1990 The results were as follows; 1) The male to female ratio of the late-onset schizohprenic patients was 1 : 5. 2) The patients with late-onset schizophrenia were more likely to have grandiose delusions and auditory hallucinations than those o f early-onset schizophrenia. 3) There was no significant difference in frequenty o f clinical symptoms such as loosening of association, inappropriate affect, catatonia and response to neuroleptic treatment among each group. In light of these results, it seems likely that late-onset schizophrenia is somewhat different from, or might be a subtype of, more typical schizophrenia