Hostname: page-component-76c49bb84f-zv2rg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-12T13:55:56.324Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Presentation of Mental Illness in Mentally Retarded Adults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Elaine Catherine Wright
Elaine Catherine Wright*
Affiliation:
St Lawrence's Hospital, Caterham, Surrey, CR3 5YA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

A survey of 1507 mentally handicapped adults in a long-stay hospital, three-quarters of whom were severely subnormal, led to the identification of 42 (2.8 per cent of the total group) with a current typical affective illness. Non-verbal criteria were used so that such conditions could be recognized at any level. Schizophrenia could be diagnosed only on verbally expressed symptoms and was found in 27 (1.8 per cent) of the patients, none of whom was preverbal in mental level. Forty-one (2.7 per cent) had an atypical affective illness superimposed on an early childhood psychosis. Half of these patients were preverbal, so that the pattern of their illness was particularly difficult to recognize.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 141 , Issue 5 , November 1982 , pp. 496 - 502
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Corbett, J. (1979) Psychiatric morbidity and mental retardation. In Psychiatric Illness and Mental Handicap (eds. Snaith, P. and James, F. E.). Ashford, Kent: Headley Brothers.Google Scholar
Creak, E. M. (1964) Schizophrenic syndrome in childhood: fruther progress report of a working party (April 1961). Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 6, 530–35.Google Scholar
Dalton, K. (1969) The Menstrual Cycle. Period Pain. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1972) Census of mentally handicapped patients in hospital in England and Wales at the end of 1970. Statistical and Research Report Series, no. 3. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Duncan, A. G. (1936) Mental deficiency and manic-depressive insanity. Journal of Mental Science, 82, 635–47.Google Scholar
Fish, F. (1967) Clinical presentation and classification of schizophrenia. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 1, 7, 566–71.Google Scholar
Forrest, A. D. & Ogunremi, O. O. (1974) The prevalence of psychiatric illness in a hospital for the mentally handicapped. Health Bulletin, 32, 199–202.Google Scholar
Gould, J. (1976) Language development and non-verbal skills in severely mentally retarded children: an epidemiological study. Journal of Mental Deficiency Research, 20, 129–46.Google Scholar
Heaton-Ward, W. A. (1975) Mental Subnormality, 4th ed. Bristol: John Wright.Google Scholar
Heaton-Ward, W. A. (1977) Psychosis in mental handicap. British Journal of Psychiatry, 130, 525–33.Google Scholar
Hermelin, B. (1976) Coding and the Sense Modalities. In Early Childhood Autism, Clinical, Educational and Social Aspects (ed. Wing, L.), 2nd ed. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Kirman, B. H. (1979) Mental illness and mental handicap: Reflections on diagnostic problems and prevalence. In Psychiatric Illness and Mental Handicap (eds. James, F. E. and Snaith, R. P.). Ashford, Kent: Headley Brothers.Google Scholar
Leck, I., Gordon, W. L. & McKeown, T. (1967) Medical and social needs of patients in hospitals for the mentally subnormal. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine, 21, 115–21.Google Scholar
Maxwell, A. E. (1961) Analysing Quantitative Date. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Myerson, A. & Boyle, R. D. (1941) The incidence of manic depressive psychosis in certain socially important families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 98, 11–21.Google Scholar
O'Connor, N. & Tizard, J. (1956) The Social Problem of Mental Deficiency. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (1974) Morbidity statistics from general practice. Second National Survey, 1970–71. Studies on Medical and Population Subjects, no. 26. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Payne, R. (1968) The psychotic subnormal. Journal of Mental Subnormality, 18, 1, 26, 25–34.Google Scholar
Penrose, L. S. (1938) A clinical and genetic study of 1, 280 cases of mental defect. Special Report on Services of Research Council, No. 229. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Pollitt, J. (1971) Aetiological, clinical and therapeutic aspects of depression. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 64, 1174–8.Google Scholar
Pollitt, J. (1978) The depressed patient. Practitioner, 220, 205–12.Google Scholar
Pollock, H. M. (1945) Mental disease among mental defectives. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 49, 4, 477–80.Google Scholar
Reid, A. H. (1971) Mental illness in adult mental defectives with special reference to psychosis. Unpublished, MD thesis, University of Dundee.Google Scholar
Reid, A. H. (1972) Psychoses in adult mental defectives: 1. Manic depressive psychosis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 120, 205–12.Google Scholar
Reid, A. H. (1980) Diagnosis of Psychiatric disorder in the severely and profoundly retarded patient. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 73, September.Google Scholar
Ricks, D. M. & Wing, L. (1976) Language, communication and the use of symbols. In Early Childhood Autism, Clinical, Educational and Social Aspects (ed. Wing, L.), 2nd ed. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Schneider, K. (1959) Cyclothymia and schizophrenia. In Clinical Psychopathology (Transl. Hamilton, M. W., based on 5th revised edition of Klinische Psychopathologie, Stuttgart Verlag). New York, London: Grune & Stratton.Google Scholar
Slater, E. (1936) The inheritance of manic-depressive insanity and its relation to mental defect. Journal of Mental Science, 82, 626–34.Google Scholar
Sutherland, H. & Stewart, I. (1965) A critical analysis of the premenstrual syndrome. Lancet, 1, 1180–83.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K. & Brown, G. W. (1970) Institutionalism and schizophrenia: summary, discussion and conclusions In Institutionalism and Schizophrenia. A Comparative Study of Three Mental Hospitals 1960–1968. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Wing, L. & Gould, J. (1979) Severe impairments of social interaction and associated abnormalities in children: epidemiology and classification. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 9, 11–29.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.