[Psychogenic pathologic personality development in advanced age].

A study of 51 patients with psychogenic abnormalities developed in old age has shown that the development of such disorders is a comparatively frequent outcome of neuroses and reactive psychoses with the onset in the presenile period and only as an exception takes place in patients with the onset of psychogenic disturbances in old age. Depressive development has proved most typical for advanced age. Such manifestations as chronic subdepression, diffuse hypochondria, egocentrism and rent orientations are universal for all clinical variants of senile pathological development of personality. According to a regression analysis the development of psychogenic disturbances in the second half of life is facilitated by the objective significance and persistence of traumatic situations, a low professional level of patients and a number of other socio-psychological and biological characteristics of the person.