Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-gtxcr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T20:12:18.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spatial Disorientation in Senile Dementia the Psychological Mechanisms Disturbed and Some Suggested Methods of Compensation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2018

Moyra Williams
Moyra Williams*
Affiliation:
United Oxford Hospitals Geriatric Unit, Cowley Road, Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Disorientation in a new place (e.g. a hospital ward) and inability to remember a route after having been shown and having walked it several times, is a well known feature of senile dementia. These disturbances are a frequent practical cause of difficulty, since such patients are not uncommonly physically fit and active and unless allowed to wander about during some of their waking hours become irritable and unhappy. Yet their supervision and care places a great strain on those responsible for their welfare. If left to themselves they have a tendency to fall downstairs or to wander on to roads which renders them a menace both to themselves and to others. Some insight into the causes of spatial disorientation in the elderly, and ways in which it might to some extent be compensated for, would therefore be of considerable practical assistance. It may not lead to a cure of the defects, any more than a study of the reasons for getting lost in a fog will help to relieve the meteorological conditions. What it may do, however, is to discover the equivalent to senile patients of “cats' eyes” to the motorist, and help to relieve labour and prevent accidents.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Journal of Mental Science , Volume 102 , Issue 427 , April 1956 , pp. 291 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1956 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bonhoeffer, K., Die Akuten Geisteskrankheiten der Gewohnheitstrinker, 1901. Jena.Google Scholar
Cosin, L., The Practitioner, 1954, 172, 552.Google Scholar
Critchley, M., The Parietal Lobes, 1953. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Donahue, W., Planning for the Older Years, 1950. Ed.: Donahue, W. and Tibbetts, C., Univ. Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Doust, J. W., Schneider, R. A., Talland, G. A., Walsh, M. A., and Barker, G. B., J. Nerv. Ment. Dis., 1953, 117, 383.Google Scholar
Goldstein, K., The Organism, 1939. American Book Co. Google Scholar
Köhler, W., The Mentality of Apes, 1925. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Lashley, K. S., Physiological Mechanisms in Animal Behaviour, 1950. pp. 453–482. Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Liddell, H. S., Quart. J. Exp. Physiol., 1937, 17, 41.Google Scholar
Paterson, A., Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 1943, 36, 573.Google Scholar
Idem and Zangwill, O. L., Brain, 1944, 67, 54.Google Scholar
Porteus, S. D., The Porteus Maze Test Manual, 1952. London: Harrap and Co.Google Scholar
Williams, M., J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat., 1953, 16, 14.Google Scholar
Zangwill, O. L., Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 1951, 44, 337.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.