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A Comparison of Deaf and Non-Deaf Patients with Paranoid and Affective Psychoses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

A. F. Cooper
Affiliation:
Leverndale Hospital, Glasgow; formerly Lecturer in Psychological Medicine, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
R. F. Garside
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4LP
D. W. K. Kay*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Newcastle upon Tyne and Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 4LP
*
now Professor of Psychiatry, University of Tasmania

Summary

A comparison was made of the social and domestic background, prepsychotic personality and symptomatology of deaf (‘hard of hearing’) and non-deaf patients aged 50 or over with paranoid or affective psychoses. The deaf patients were found to be a very heterogeneous group in respect of age of onset, duration, severity and pathological basis of their deafness, but there was a substantial subgroup of paranoid patients with deafness beginning before the age of 45 in whom the personality appeared to have been less deviating than in the remainder. It was thought that the deafness in this subgroup had possibly played a relatively specific role in causing the psychosis. Some problems in identifying deafness and assessing its significance are discussed.

Type
Papers
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1976 

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References

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