Memory performance of geriatric and nongeriatric chronic schizophrenic patients: A cross-sectional study

Memory functioning has been studied extensively in nongeriatric schizophren ic 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 s tudy examined the association of age and global cognitive dysfunction with verbal and spatial learning and delayed recall,as well as examining differe ntial impairments in delayed recall as compared to delayed recognition memo ry. 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 tes ts were administered. All aspects of memory functioning were correlated wit h estimates of global cognitive status. When global cognitive status was co ntrolled, age effects were still found for the majority of the memory measu res. Delayed recognition memory was not spared, being performed as poorly a s delayed recall. In contrast to previous studies of better-outcome patient s with schizophrenia, geriatric patients with chronic schizophrenia perform ed more poorly than nongeriatric patients. The lack of sparing of delayed r ecognition memory suggests that previous findings of specific recall memory deficit and a subcortical profile of memory impairments may apply to schiz ophrenic patients with less severe global cognitive impairments. These data suggest that poor-outcome patients may have a pattern of memory impairment s that has some features in common with cortical dementia.