LATE-LIFE SCHIZOPHRENIA - INTRODUCTION

Until recently, most of the research on schizophrenia has focused on young adults. With increasing longevity, the number of older schizophrenia patients in the population is expected to grow. Late-life schizophrenia patients fall into two groups: those who developed schizophrenia for the first time in later adulthood (late-onset schizophrenia) and those who developed the illness earlier in life and are presently middle-aged or elderly. There is a scarcity of published studies on late-life schizophrenia. The available data tend to challenge the commonly held view of schizophrenia as a disorder with onset restricted to the first half of life and a progressively deteriorating course. Further work on this important but long-neglected patient population is urgently needed for clinical as well as research purposes.