[Late-onset schizophrenia]

To verify clinical observations by the epidemiological method.

The data of the full investigation of 1781 schizophrenia cases, including 403 patients in the age of 60 and older were used.

A number of characteristics inherent for this group were fully consistent with clinical observations. These characteristics were connected with a few factors: probability to reach the old age for patients with young onset schizophrenia; probability to stay under psychiatric care for patients with long disease duration; characteristics of certain forms of schizophrenia and probability of the onset of some symptoms in elderly patients. A combined effect of these factors resulted in the development of some common features of schizophrenia with late-onset, i.e. the rarity of malignant schizophrenia and high frequency of depressive disorders. The author underlines the vagueness of the notion «late schizophrenia».