Dementia praecox revisited. Age disorientation, mental status, and ventricular enlargement

Thirty-nine patients with DSM-III diagnoses of schizophrenia were examined for age disorientation, an inability to produce one's correct chronological age upon request. Six patients were age-disoriented and demented (as defined by Mini-Mental State evaluation), while two patients had delusions concerning their age, but were not demented. Age-disoriented, demented patients had very large cerebral ventricles and very low Mini-Mental State scores. This group differed on the cognitive and neuroanatomic variables from other demented, but not age-disoriented, patients, as well as from non-demented patients who were age-oriented. The age-disoriented patients appeared to be at an extreme end of the dementia spectrum in schizophrenia.