Social, Medical and Personality Factors Associated with Vulnerability to Psychiatric Breakdown in Old Age

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Abstract
A combined social and psychiatric survey of 297 old people living at home and selected at random from the population of Newcastle-upon-Tyne is presented. Of those aged 65 and over; 30% were suffering from some form of psychiatric disorder, which in about 10% was serious. The dimensions of the problem make it clear that a prophylactic approach helping old people to remain viable in the community is essential. Those identified as mentally abnormal differed significantly from normal old people in the survey in relation to a number of features, including physical disability, decreased mobility, reduction in number of contacts and oddities of personality. Patients with schizophrenia appearing in late life are frequently unmarried and isolated. Their social isolation was due largely to lifelong oddities of personality, but to some extent also to accidental factors such as fewer surviving relations and deafness.

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