[Basic patterns in the formation of sluggish schizophrenia according to epidemiologic findings]

The study is based on clinico-epidemiological data concerning sluggish schizophrenia revealed in 214 patients. Conclusions of the formation of a slowly progressive process are made by a retrospective clinical analysis of the disease from the initial period, to the ordinal transition of syndromes, up to the moment of the interview. The unification of the assessment of the present state was accomplished with the aid of a glossary of syndromes. Despite the clinical variants of sluggish schizophrenia the author established some general regularities in the development of the disease with 3 stages. In such forms of the process during the 2nd stage the clinical variability disappears and is substituted by monomorphity. The negative symptoms appear early during the first stage but during decades they may remain hidden by vividly expressed pseudoneurotic and psychopath-like syndromes.