Description

Paraphrenia is a clinical entity described by Kraepelin in the eighth edition of his textbook in 1913. He formed this concept to define a group of patients who exhibited symptoms characteristic of dementia praecox, but with minimal disturbances of emotion and volition, and marked delusions with or without hallucinations. Herein the four subtypes of paraphrenia classified by Kraepelin and the prognostic research of Mayer, who studied the outcomes of patients reported by Kraepelin are described. After the publication of Mayer's study in 1921, the view to differentiate paraphrenia from schizophrenia was considered to be unfounded in Germany.

In the 1950s, Roth in the U. K. examined patients over age 60 with delusional states and with/without hallucinations, and introduced late paraphrenia as a clinical entity. Although the term (late) paraphrenia present in the ICD-9 is not included in the recent diagnostic criteria, many researchers recognize that the concept of (late) paraphrenia has not lost its usefulness for the diagnosis of psychotic disorders in old age. As in the days of Kraepelin, the problems concerning paraphrenia cannot be neglected when considering the classification of psychotic disorders. The cortical appearance on CT scan in patients suffering from late paraphrenia was assessed compared to that of age-matched normal controls. There was no difference in overall cortical appearance between the two groups. However, a correlation existed between ventricular size and cortical size and between ventricular size and age in normal controls but this was not present in paraphrenia. The implications of these findings are discussed in relation to a possible structural abnormality in late paraphrenia. A partition delusion is the belief that people, objects or radiation can pass through what would normally constitute a barrier to such passage. These delusions have been reported to be common in late paraphrenia and late-onset schizophrenia. Such partition delusions were found in 68% of 50 patients with late paraphrenia, but only in 13% of patients with schizophrenia who had grown old and in 20% of young schizophrenics. Partition delusions, often in association with persecutory beliefs, are common in late paraphrenia.

Kindly submit your manuscript through https://www.imedpub.com/submissions/annals-behavioural-science.html
With Regards
Jessica
Journal Coordinator
Journal of Annals of Behavioural Science