Journal of Mental Science (1953) 99: 451-463. doi: 10.1192/bjp.99.416.451
© 1953 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Psychological Test Performance in Patients over Sixty. II. Paraphrenia, Arteriosclerotic Psychosis and Acute Confusion

Barbara Hopkins, B.A. and Martin Roth, M.D.Lond., M.R.C.P., D.P.M.

Department of Clinical Research, Graylingwell Hospital, Chichester, Sussex

ABSTRACT

  1. Three tests were given to consecutively admitted patients aged 60 and above, who fell into the diagnostic categories of paraphrenia, arteriosclerotic psychosis and acute confusional state. Test performance in each group was compared with that in affective psychosis and senile psychosis, which have previously been described.
  2. Test scores placed the paraphrenics and cases of acute confusion with the affective group. The scores of arteriosclerotic patients fell somewhere between the senile and affective group. Senile psychotics showed a distribution of scores almost wholly distinct from that shown by affective psychosis, paraphrenia and acute confusion. The distribution in the case of arteriosclerotic psychosis showed some overlap with the effective and the senile groups.
  3. The fact that the scores fall into three different distributions provides some support for the view derived from clinical and follow-up studies that affective psychosis, paraphrenia and many cases of acute confusion in old age deserve separate classification from the two main groups of organic psychosis. It also supports the validity of the distinction drawn on clinical grounds between senile and arteriosclerotic psychosis.