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Schizophrenia psychotic break8/7/2023 ![]() ![]() Negative symptoms persist, whereas positive symptoms tend to show a modest improvement with aging (Cohen et al., 2000).Ĭan schizophrenia ever remit? Most people are now familiar with the story of John Forbes Nash, Ph.D., the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician whose remission of schizophrenia around the age of 60 was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film, A Beautiful Mind. Most elderly people with schizophrenia are symptomatic and disabled but not demented and are living in the community. The course of early-onset schizophrenia in older age is relatively stable and non-deteriorating. The theory is that estrogen has a protective effect against schizophrenia, and when that protection diminishes, women who are vulnerable to develop schizophrenia begin to manifest symptoms of the illness (Seeman, 1997). One possible explanation for this gender difference is related to a loss of estrogen with menopause in older women. However, late-onset schizophrenia is characterized by less severe negative symptoms such as social withdrawal and blunting of emotions, less severe deficits in learning, need for and tolerance to lower doses of antipsychotic medications, and a much higher proportion of women than men. Middle-age-onset patients are similar to early-onset patients in terms of positive symptoms (paranoid delusions and auditory hallucinations), family history of the illness, pattern of cognitive impairment (deficits in learning and abstraction but not in delayed recall), nonspecific brain-imaging abnormalities such as mild ventricular enlargement and white matter hyperintensities, chronicity of illness, and higher mortality from suicide and other causes (Jeste et al., 1997). Of the older people with schizophrenia, nearly 25% have late-onset schizophrenia (with onset of illness usually in middle age), while the remaining 75% have had schizophrenia since adolescence or early adulthood. Schizophrenia can manifest for the first time in middle age or later, and the course of schizophrenia in old age is typically different from that of dementia (Jeste et al., 1997). Nonetheless, research in late-life schizophrenia shows that the century-old Kraepelinian concept of "dementia praecox"-i.e., a disorder with onset restricted to adolescence or early adulthood with progressive downhill course-is not quite accurate. These patients are usually unable to work or interact with society in a productive manner. The proportions of those living with family or in long-term institutional settings are relatively small. Older adults with schizophrenia often live alone, in assisted-care facilities, in homeless shelters or on the street. Furthermore, the cost of health care tends to be highest for the oldest of these patients (Cuffel et al., 1996). Schizophrenia affects about 1% of the population and is arguably the most expensive mental illness in adults. Please see Table 1 on p19 of the print edition-Ed.) (Due to copyright concerns, this table cannot be reproduced online. Table 1 highlights the main differences between these two conditions (Jeste and Finkel, 2000). ![]() Two important chronic psychotic disorders in older people that will be discussed in this article are schizophrenia in late life and psychosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Chronic and persistent psychotic symptoms belong to one of two groups: primary psychotic disorders (such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder, psychotic mood disorder) or psychosis secondary to dementia or other general medical conditions. The health-related well-being of older patients with psychosis living in the community is comparable to (or even slightly worse than) that of outpatients with AIDS (Patterson et al., 1996).Īcute psychotic symptoms in older people may reflect delirium or metabolic causes. One of the most disenfranchised groups in health care is older people with psychotic disorders. In addition, as people in the general population live longer, the numbers of individuals who will develop psychotic disorders in later life will also grow. The average life span of these patients is expected to increase, thanks to improved pharmacologic and other treatments, as well as general improvement in health and nutrition. Younger adults who have a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, currently have a significantly shorter life span than those without mental illness. There will be a disproportionately greater increase in the number of elderly Americans who suffer from a mental illness-from approximately 6 million today to about 15 million by 2030 (Jeste et al., 1999a). ![]() With the aging of the baby boomers, the number of people in the United States older than 65 is projected to double from about 35 million today to nearly 70 million by 2030. ![]()
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