Neurological changes in a population of patients with chronic schizophrenia and their relationship to physical...

Although chronic schizophrenia is a disorder for which very large numbers of patients receive long-term inpatient care there have been few systematic studies of the disabilities of this condition. The present study was designed to define the nature of these disabilities, to determine their frequency in a large population of inpatients with chronic schizophrenia and to determine the extent to which they are a feature of the illness itself and that to which they results from other factors such as physical treatment. The abnormalities of this population were therefore assessed in terms of cognitive functioning, neurological signs, features, of the mental state and behavioral performance. These abnormalities were related to the earlier features of the illness to personal and historical factors and to physical treatments received. In this presentation the main emphasis is upon the neurological findings.