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Query: UMLS:C0036341 (schizophrenia)
 60,220 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The clinical data and forensic aspects of 28 individuals charged with murder and 10 charged with attempted murder examined over the last 35 years are recorded. The majority of those aged 40 years or over were criminally insane. A positive family history of psychiatric illness was present in the majority of the criminally insane group. Murder and attempted murder in the setting of a stable marriage was almost invariably the result of serious psychiatric illness. After the clearcut cases of schizophrenia and depressive illness were separated there were left a mixed paranoid group and a large group of individuals with severe personality disorders. Of the forensic aspects a case is made for the wider use of "unfitness to plead" in the severely psychotic. The follow-up of cases strongly suggested that those found not guilty on psychiatric grounds were likely to be held for longer periods than those treated as criminals. The author suggests that the public would be better protected if the Crown sought an insanity verdict in some cases rather than oppose it.
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PMID:Psychiatric aspects of murder and attempted murder. 106 31

If, as hypothesized, neuroactive peptides from grain glutens are the major agents evoking schizophrenia in those with the genotype(s), it should be rare if grain is rare. To test this, we analyzed the results of our clinical examinations (e.g., kuru) and observations of anthropologists on peoples consuming little or no grain. Only two overtly insane chronic schizophrenics were found among over 65,000 examined or closely observed adults in remote regions of Papua New Guinea (PNG, 1950-1967) and Malaita , Solomon Islands (1980-1981), and on Yap , Micronesia (1947-1948). In preneuroleptic Europe over 130 would have been expected. When these peoples became partially westernized and consumed wheat, barley beer, and rice, the prevalence reached European levels. Our findings agree with previous epidemiologic and experimental results indicating that grain glutens are harmful to schizophrenics.
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PMID:Is schizophrenia rare if grain is rare? 660 26

Prior to 1800, insane persons often lived on the streets or were incarcerated in asylums, jails, or prisons. The 19th century witnessed progression in the understanding of psychosis, and the hospital management of psychotic patients began. While Kraepelin in Europe described the symptoms of what would later be called schizophrenia, Meyer developed humanistic treatment for the illness in the United States. The early 20th century treatments for schizophrenia included insulin coma, metrazol shock, electro-convulsive therapy, and frontal leukotomy. Neuroleptic medications were first used in the early 1950s. Deinstitutionalization, beginning in the 1960s, resulted in medicated, stable schizophrenics being released from state hospitals. However, lack of stable living arrangements, misuse of funds, poor medical follow-up, and drug use resulted in deterioration of a large segment of this outpatient schizophrenic population. The 1990s have seen the development of newer, more effective antipsychotic agents and managed care. Both have impacted the state of health of schizophrenics in our society.
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PMID:Schizophrenia: Emil Kraepelin, Adolph Meyer, and beyond. 874 31

We discuss the assessment of testamentary capacity (ability to execute a valid will) in elderly people. Such assessment should include evaluation of the person's knowledge regarding the purpose of the will, the extent of the property involved, the legal heirs, and how the property is distributed according to the will. Some conditions may invalidate a will, including insane delusions and undue influence; however, the mere presence of severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia or dementia, does not automatically render elderly people incompetent to execute a valid will.
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PMID:Assessing testamentary capacity in elderly people. 900 16

It is known that social drift to cities increases the urban prevalence for severe mental illnesses. Recent studies in England and Sweden have reported that being born in, or raised in, an urban area is also a risk factor for later developing schizophrenia. The present study utilized 1880 census data, the most complete enumeration of severely mentally ill individuals ever done in the United States, to examine the association of urban residence and severe mental illnesses. Individuals identified as having one of seven forms of 'insanity' (n = 91959) were allocated to their county of origin (n = 2661) in the census. Rates of 'insane' persons per 1000 population were calculated for each county. The counties were then divided by degree of urbanization based on the largest cities and the percentage of population living in towns of 4000 or more. The point prevalence of 'insanity' in the United States as a whole in 1880 was 1.8 per 1000. There was a significant association between 'insanity' by county and degree of urbanization, with odds ratios of 1.66 for urban, 1.46 for semi-urban, and 1.44 for semi-rural, and 1.37 for rural, using completely rural counties as a baseline. Most completely rural counties with high rates included mining camps, lumbering camps, or fishing villages, and not farming areas. In addition to urban drift, urban birth and residence appear to be risk factors for developing severe mental illnesses. Psychological and biological explanations have both been proposed. However, recent studies reporting winter birth and urban birth or residence as synergistic risk factors favor the latter.
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PMID:Urban birth and residence as risk factors for psychoses: an analysis of 1880 data. 926 72

Environmental reduplication or reduplicative paramnesia is one of the content-specific delusions (CSD) which is characterized by reduplication of places. CSD has been reported in focal and diffuse cerebral disorders. A focal lesion such as frontal lobes and the right hemispheric lesion have been documented The authors describe a 66 year-old woman who had a delusion of misidentification for place one month after right middle cerebral artery occlusion. The patient did not have any history of schizophrenia or other psychiatric diseases. The patient believed that her car, furniture and house were duplicated. She also mentioned that her son and friends tried to takeover all of her properties and told everyone that she was insane. The prominent cortical signs were tactile and visual neglect. Neuropsychological assessments revealed poor attention but she had neither confusion nor dementia. Clock drawing and construction tests revealed visuospatial impairment which was compatible with non-dominant hemispheric abnormality. MRI showed evidence of cerebral infarction in the right middle cerebral artery territory. Only one similar patient who had an intracerbral hematoma of the right frontal lobe has been reported in the literature. The role of occipito-parietal and fronto-temporal lobes or their connections in environmental reduplication is proposed.
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PMID:Environmental reduplication in a patient with right middle cerebral artery occlusion. 1582 53

The history of serological investigations of the blood of the insane is traced from the initial such study in 1854 by a solitary Scottish asylum physician, who counted the blood cells of his lunatic patients under a weak microscope, to the January 2005 announcement by an international team of geneticists of the development of a genomic blood test that can differentially diagnose schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The story of the first claim of the development of a blood test for madness in 1912--the Abderhalden defensive ferments reaction test--is related in detail. Studies of the blood of the insane have followed four general methodological paradigms: the corpuscular richness paradigm (1854); the metabolic paradigm (c. 1895); the immunoserodiagnostic paradigm (1906); and the medical genomics paradigm (2005).
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PMID:The blood of the insane. 1733 71

Although currently there is a large body of research on the characteristics and treatment of sex offenders, very little research has been conducted to investigate the characteristics of sex offenders who have been adjudicated insane. This study included 42 patients at Napa State Hospital who were adjudicated not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) for a sex offense. The sample was further divided into offenders whose victims were children and those whose victims were adults. Data were collected with a structured chart review instrument. A large percentage of the sex offenders received a primary diagnosis of schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and many had a comorbid substance use disorder. The high percentage of sex offenders in the current study with diagnosed schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder may represent a previously unstudied subgroup of sex offenders. An alternative explanation is that the experts did not evaluate substance use and intoxication adequately, assess for malingering, or apply the proper legal standard for insanity.
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PMID:Sex offenders and insanity: an examination of 42 individuals found not guilty by reason of insanity. 1808 37

The goal of this study was identification of highly specific patterns of schizophrenia related domestic homicides by comparing schizophrenic homicide offenders with related domestic homicide group of offenders diagnosed with other psychiatric disorders. This study was based on the comparison of schizophrenic homicide group and other homicide group of offenders on the basis of differences in psychosocial and sociodemographic patterns and the modality of crime. The survey was conducted on mentally insane domestic homicide offenders diagnosed with schizophrenia (n=44) and second group of mentally insane offenders diagnosed with other psychiatric diagnosis (n=43). All offenders were admitted to Department of Forensic Psychiatry (Neuropsychiatric Hospital "Dr. Ivan Barbot", Popovaca, Croatia) for psychiatric evaluation. They have undergone psychological testing and psychiatric evaluation in order to make forensic expert analyses of each case particularly. This study showed some specific characteristics in the cases of schizophrenic offenders; they are more often commit parricides and siblicides, the victims are often males with their own physical strength. Furthermore, schizophrenic offenders were indifferent upon killing their victim; they were less often provoked by a victim itself and were sober tempore criminis. Moreover, in the same homicide group we found young, single offenders with high school education, average intelligence and with positive psychiatric heredity. Finally, in the same group of offenders we have found no history of military serving, less social developmental disruptions, less history of drug and alcohol abuse during adolescence and adult age.
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PMID:Domestic homicide cases related to schizophrenic offenders. 1913 16

Charles Bonnet syndrome (CBS) is a condition related to patients with visual loss due to age related macular degeneration or glaucoma that are having complex visual hallucinations. The CBS was first described by Swiss physician Charles Bonnet in 1760. Affected patients, who are otherwise mentally healthy people with significant visual loss, have vivid, complex recurrent visual hallucinations (VHs). One characteristic of these hallucinations is that they usually are "Lilliputian hallucinations" as patients experience micropsia (hallucinations in which the characters or objects are distorted and much smaller than normal). The prevalence of Charles Bonnet Syndrome has been reported to be between 10% and 40%; a recent Australian study has found the prevalence to be 17.5%. The high incidence of non-reported CBS is thought to be as a result of patient's fear to report the symptoms as they could be labeled as mentally insane since those type of visual hallucinations could be found in variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders such as drug or alcohol abuse (delirium tremens), Alice in Wonderland syndrome (AIWS), psychosis, schizophrenia, dementia, narcolepsy, epilepsy, Parkinson disease, brain tumors, migraine, as well as, in long term sleep deprivation. VHs can also be presented as the initial sign of the Epstein-Barr virus infection in infectious mononucleosis. Patients who suffer from CBS usually possess insight into the unreality of their visual experiences, which are commonly pleasant but may sometimes cause distress. The hallucinations consist of well-defined, organized, and clear images over which the subject has little control. It is believed that they represent release phenomena due to deafferentiation of the visual association areas of the cerebral cortex, leading to a form of phantom vision. Cognitive defects, social isolation, and sensory deprivation have also been implicated in the etiology of this condition. This study was conducted on 350 patients diagnosed with Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and shows incidence of CBS in 13% of patients with AMD. Furthermore, we have found higher incidence of CBS in patients with massive loss of vision in peripheral visual field which is not age related.
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PMID:What associates Charles Bonnet syndrome with age-related macular degeneration? 2130 24


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