[Disease course and outcome in hospitalized patients over 60-years old]

The authors have examined all of the hospitalized patients who were over sixty years old in all psychiatric clinics in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, on December 31, 1968, and many of them were reexamined on June 30, 1973. Through these both serial examinations, the following results are obtained: 1) Of the total 187 patients who underwent the first examination, 62 patients were still hospitalized and subjected to the second examination. 2) Twenty nine of the 62 patients were schizophrenics. One fourth of them were in remission, the rest being in a desolate or paraphrenic condition. Thirty six schizophrenics have discharged hospitals: 12 patients have left off hospitals getting a considerable improvement and 15 patients were dead. 3) Of the thirteen manic-depressives, only three were still hospitalized, and two of them were in remission. There were 10 discharged cases: three cases dead and six cases improved. 4) Six of the 24 patients diagnosed as senile dementia were still hospitalized. The diagnosis of two cases has been changed into paranoid reaction and depression respectively. Of 18 discharged patients, 14 cases were dead and the remaining four were improved. 5) Of the 22 patients diagnosed as senile psychosis, only two patients were still hospitalized, and the diagnosis has been changed into schizophrenia and epilepsy respectively. The 20 patients have left hospitals: nine cases dead and another nine improved. As the beginning symptoms, these patients showed paranoid-hallucinatic aspects which were similar to those of schizophrenia. In some cases, certain incidents that had preceded onset of the illness were found. 6) Most of the aged patients with the diagnoses associated with the physical conditions due to aging were dead.