ABSTRACT
Autopsies were performed on 23 patients with schizophre nia (group 1), 14 age-compatible control patients with no neu ropsychiatric disease (group 2), and 10 patients with AD who served as “positive” controls (group 3); Table 1 and Table 2. All patients with schizophrenia were prospectively accrued from 8 state hospitals in Pennsylvania and were clinically as sessed and diagnosed according to die DSM-1V12 criteria by research psychiatrists of the University ofPennsyl vania Schizo phrenia Mental Health Clinical Research Center, Philadel phia (under the direction of R.E.G.), as previously de scribed.6 Of the 23 patients in group 1 ,16 met the criteria for an additional diagnosis of dementia. Clinical features were characterized with standard research psychiatric rating in struments before death for correlation with the postmortem findings. These included the Mini-Mental State Examina tion,22 the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale,23 the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms,24 the Scale for the Assess ment of Negative Symptoms,25 the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale,26 and the activities of daily living subscale of the Physical Self-Maintenance Scale (Functional Assess ment Scale) .27 The mean (±SD) interval between testing and death was 10.0+6.7 months (range, 1-24 months). While there was a broad range, the mean values for the patients in group 1 characterized them as having moderate to severe demen tia, moderate to severe global psychopathologic disease, marked negative symptomatology, questionable to mild posi tive symptomatology, rare tardive dyskinesia, and a need for assistance with basic activities of daily living.
