Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T23:04:35.331Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Schizo-affective Symptomatology in Late Life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Felix Post
Felix Post*
Affiliation:
The Beihlem Royal Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London, S.E.5
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Kasanin (10) seems to have been the first author to use the term 'schizo-affective psychosis'. He drew attention to Lange's observations of catatonic features in mania, and to Claude's concept of 'schizomanie’. The case records of his young and acutely ill patients make one wonder, however, whether Kasanin had been sufficiently ready to recognize mixed manic-depressive states. Arising from the study of more prolonged illnesses, the Kleist-Leonhard school attempted to construct a number of sub-categories of schizophrenia in order to accommodate ‘cycloid’ cases. In this country, the term 'schizo-affective’ is at the present time in bad odour. Aubrey Lewis (11), employing very searching criteria, discovered schizophrenic symptoms in 23 of his 61 patients with affective psychoses, but derived them from hereditary and personality factors. Both Batchelor (2) and Mayer-Gross, Slater, and Roth (13), while admitting the occasional co-existence of manic-depressive and schizophrenic psychoses largely ascribed to mixed inheritance, have indicated that the schizo-affective label could be avoided by a more rigorous diagnostic approach and follow-up. These were employed recently by Clayton et al. (6), and of 39 schizo-affective patients 33 were re-assessed after at least one year; only 13 were still ill; and although 5 of them continued to show some schizophrenic symptoms, the authors interpreted their findings to indicate that schizophrenic deterioration was not a usual result of schizo-affective illness. Moreover, the family histories suggested a very strong relationship with ordinary affective illnesses rather than with schizophrenia or schizo-affective psychoses. These workers did not, therefore, confirm the claims of others (e.g. those arising from Mitsuda's (14) twin studies) to the effect that atypical psychoses were in a genetically different category from schizophrenia and manic-depression. The concept of 'schizo-affective’ has been devastatingly criticized by Foulds and Caine (7) on logical grounds.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 118 , Issue 545 , April 1971 , pp. 437 - 445
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1971 

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

1 Alarcon, R. de and Carney, M. W. P. (1969). ‘Severe depressive mood changes following slow-release intramuscular fluphenazine injection.’ British Medical Journal, iii, 564–7.Google Scholar
2 Batchelor, I. R. C. (1964). ‘The diagnosis of schizophrenia.’ Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 57, 417–9.Google ScholarPubMed
3 Birley, J. (1969). ‘Examination of functional psychosis.’ Paper read at a meeting of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association (20 November, 1969).Google Scholar
4 Chesser, E. S. (1965). A Study of some Aetiological Factors in the Affective Disorders of Old Age. Unpublished Dissertation, Institute of Psychiatry, London.Google Scholar
5 Clark, J. A., and Mallett, B. L. (1963). ‘A follow-up study of schizophrenia and depression in young adults.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 109, 491–9.Google Scholar
6 Clayton, P. J., Rodin, L., and Winokur, G. (1968). ‘Schizo-affective disorders: clinical and genetic factors.’ Comprehensive Psychiatry, 9, 31–49.Google Scholar
7 Foulds, G. A. (Caine, T. M., Collab.) (1965). Personality and Personal Illness. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
8 Freeman, T. (1968). Psychopathology of the Psychoses. London: Tavistock Publications.Google Scholar
9 Johnson, J. (1969). ‘Depressive changes after fluphenazine treatment.’ British Medical Journal, iii, 718.Google Scholar
10 Kasanin, J. (1933). ‘The acute schizo-affective psychoses.’ American Journal of Psychiatry, 13, 97–126.Google Scholar
11 Lewis, A. J. (1934). ‘Melancholia: a clinical survey of depressive states.’ Journal of Mental Science, 80, 227–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
12 Marjot, D. H. (1969). ‘Depression following fluphenazine treatment.’ British Medical Journal, iii, 780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
13 Mayer-Gross, Slater and Roth, (Slater, E. and Roth, M., Eds.) (1969). Clinical Psychiatry. London: Baillière, Tindall and Cassell.Google Scholar
14 Mitsuda, H. (1965). ‘The concept of “atypical psychoses” from the aspect of clinical genetics.’ Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 41, 372–5.Google Scholar
15 Post, F. (1962). The Significance of Affective Symptoms in Old Age. Maudsley Monograph, 10, London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
16 Post, F. (1966). Persistent Persecutory States of the Elderly. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
17 Post, F. (1968). The factors of ageing in affective illness, in Recent Developments in Affective Disorders (Coppen, A. and Walk, H., Eds.). British Journal of Psychiatry Special Publication No. 2.Google Scholar
18 Schneider, K. (1953). Clinical Psychopathology. (Eng. Transl. 1959. New York: Grune and Stratton).Google Scholar
19 Woodruff, R. (1966). ‘The diagnostic use of the amylobarbitone interview among patients with psychotic illnesses.’ British Journal of Psychiatry, 112, 727–32.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.