Memory and organizational strategies in chronic and acute schizophrenic patients

The memory profile of acute and chronic schizophrenic patients was examined according to the information processing model, with which encoding, retent ion and retrieval processes of these patients were compared. The effects of an external organizational strategy on their verbal learning and memory we re also examined. Twenty chronic and 20 acute schizophrenic patients were t ested with a list learning task consisting of a random (i.e., words present ed randomly) and a blocked (i.e., words presented in clusters) word-list. T he schizophrenic patients, as compared with age- and education-matched norm al control subjects, demonstrated impaired learning, and the duration of th eir illness was not a significant factor in the severity of their learning impairment. However, the acute and chronic schizophrenic patients seem able to retain most of the newly acquired materials. regardless of the presenta tion format, after 30 min. In addition, the learning and subjective organiz ational strategy of the chronic patients, but not that of the acute patient s. improved significantly by the blocked presentation. However, semantic or ganization could facilitate both the chronic and acute schizophrenic patien ts to retain more newly learned items. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All r ights reserved.