ADRENOCORTICAL REACTIVITY IN AGED 

 SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS* 



H. Freeman, m.d., G. Pincus, Ph.o., F. Elmadjian, Ph.D., 

 AND Louise P. Romanoff, a.b. 



Worcester State Hospital, Worcester, Mass., and Worcester Foundation for 

 Experimental Biology, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts 



Previous investigations by Pincus et al. (1949) and 

 Hoagland et al. (1953) have described abnormal findings in 

 adrenocortical responsivity in young and middle-aged schizo- 

 phrenic patients. The present paper deals with a study of 

 adrenocortical reactivity in elderly normal and schizophrenic 

 men to determine whether senescence modifies the results 

 obtained in the younger groups. 



The normal subjects included 34 men, ranging in age from 

 sixty to ninety-one years with a mean of seventy-six years, 

 who were obtained partly from the community-at-large and 

 partly from a home for the aged. All were active and were 

 free from any obvious disease except the usual stigmata of 

 the ageing process. The patients, 33 in number, were all 

 residents of the Worcester State Hospital. They ranged in 

 age from sixty to eighty-one years with a mean of sixty-eight 

 years. They had been confined to the hospital an average of 

 31 -3 years, the range being 10-1 to 49-6 years. The majority 

 of these patients were of the paranoid type, with a scattering 

 of the other usual subtypes. All the patients likewise, for their 

 age, were in good physical condition. They were a selected 

 group in so far as co-operation was an essential element for 

 the completion of the studies. Data on young subjects are 

 included in this study to exempUfy specific points as to the 

 ageing process. 



♦Investigations described in this paper have been aided by grants from the 

 Scottisli Rite Committee for Research in Dementia Praecox, the United States 

 Pubhc Health Service (H-1659 and M-G57) and by an institutional grant 

 from the American Cancer Society. 



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