[Clinical manifestations of schizophrenia in right and left-handed patients].

In a series covering 1177 right-handed and 93 left-handed schizophrenic individuals, the author elicited the age of the patients at the onset of disease and correlated different forms of the disease course. Among the right-handed patients, the disorder was more likely to become manifest at the age of 35 to 44 years and the incidence of the shift-like form was elevated. The left-handed subjects showed an earlier onset of disease (20-24 years) and the prevalence of progressive paranoid schizophrenia. In the author's opinion, the cerebral functional asymmetry related to the type of one's handedness exerts a modifying influence on the course of schizophrenia.