Memory functioning has been studied extensively
in nongeriatric schizophrenic patients, leading to the
suggestion that schizophrenic patients manifest a “subcortical”
pattern of memory deficits. Few previous studies examined
very poor outcome patients with a chronic course of hospitalization.
This study examined the association of age and global cognitive
dysfunction with verbal and spatial learning and delayed
recall, as well as examining differential impairments in
delayed recall as compared to delayed recognition memory.
Sixty-six chronic schizophrenic patients were studied,
with 30 of these patients over the age of 65. Verbal (California
Verbal Learning Test) and spatial (Biber Figure Learning
Test) serial learning and delayed memory tests were administered.
All aspects of memory functioning were correlated with
estimates of global cognitive status. When global cognitive
status was controlled, age effects were still found for
the majority of the memory measures. Delayed recognition
memory was not spared, being performed as poorly as delayed
recall. In contrast to previous studies of better-outcome
patients with schizophrenia, geriatric patients with chronic
schizophrenia performed more poorly than nongeriatric patients.
The lack of sparing of delayed recognition memory suggests
that previous findings of specific recall memory deficit
and a subcortical profile of memory impairments may apply
to schizophrenic patients with less severe global cognitive
impairments. These data suggest that poor-outcome patients
may have a pattern of memory impairments that has some
features in common with cortical dementia. (JINS,
1999, 5, 494–501.)
The use of computerised tomography in mental handicap patients
