[Prepsychotic period in schizophrenic patients first arising and becoming acute in advanced age]

A comparative clinical and laboratory study was accomplished in 2 groups of late schizophrenia (with an onset and exacerbation of the process in the framework of a sluggish development). The results obtained demonstrated, that in a wide similarity of the manifest syndromes these groups may be differentiated, basing on examination of the initial period. The following types of the initial period were distinguished: asthenical, anxious-obsessive, cenesthopathic-hypochondriacal, affective, paranoial, psychopath-like, pseudoorganic. It was shown that the differences are determined by the premorbid personality traits, the degree of residual organic brain insufficiency and an intermingling of the psychogenic, somatogenic, vascular and toxic factors in the pathogenetic structure.