Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T15:49:04.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Genetic Study of Affective Illness in Patients over 50

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

G. Hopkinson*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester, Department of Psychiatry, Gaskell House Annexe, Swinton Grove, Manchester 13, England

Extract

The genetic evidence concerning affective illness of later life is still conflicting and the relationship of such conditions to the manic-depressive psychosis unclear. Kallman (1955) believed that, genetically, involutional melancholia bore a closer relationship to schizophrenia than to the manic-depressive psychosis. An increased risk for schizophrenia amongst the relatives of such patients was not observed by Kay (1959) and Stenstedt (1952). Both these writers do however describe a lower loading for manic-depressive psychosis than would be found amongst the relations of manic-depressive patients, though a much higher incidence than in the general population. Both Stenstedt and Kay assumed that they were dealing with a heterogeneous group of patients containing both psychotic and neurotic depressions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1964 

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

Hopkinson, G. (1963). “The onset of affective illness”, Psychiat. et Neurol. (Basel), 146, 3, 133140.Google Scholar
Kallman, F. J. (1953). Heredity in Health and Mental Disorder. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Kallman, F. J. and Barroff, L. (1955). “Abnormalities of behaviour (in the light of psychogenetic studies)”, Ann. Rev. Psychol., 6, 297.Google Scholar
Kay, D. (1959). “Observations on the natural history and genetics of old age psychoses”, Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 52, 791.Google Scholar
Petrilowitsch, N., and Heinrich, K. (1961). “Zur klinischen Differenzierung endogen-depressiver Erkrankungen”, Z. ges. Neurol. Psychiat., 202, 371.Google Scholar
Schulz, B. (1951). “Auszahlungen in der Verwandtschaft von nach Erkrankungsalter und Geschlecht gruppierten Manisch-depressiven”, Arch. f. Psych, u. Z. Neurol., 186, 560.Google Scholar
Slater, E. (1938). “Zur erbpathologie des manisch-depressiven Irreseins: die Eltern und Kindern von Manisch-depressiven”, Z. ges. Neurol. Psychiat., 163, 1.Google Scholar
Stenstedt, A. (1952). “A study in manic-depressive psychosis: clinical, social and genetic investigations”, Acta psychiat. Scand. Suppl. 79.Google Scholar
Stenstedt, A. “Involutional melancholia: an aetiologic, clinical and social study of endogenous depression in later life, with special reference to genetic factors”, ibid., 127.Google Scholar
Weitbrecht, H. J. (1952). “Zur Typologie depressiver Psychosen”, Fortschr. Neurol., 20, 247.Google Scholar
Weitbrecht, H. J. (1954). “Affektive Psychosen”, Schweiz. Archiv. f. Neurol. Psychiat., 73, 379.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.