Faculty Articles

Empirical clusters of disordered behavior among older psychiatric inpatients.

Publication Title

Journal of gerontology

Publisher

Gerontological Society of America

ISSN

0022-1422

Publication Date

1-1-1990

Keywords

Aged, Behavior, Delirium, Dementia, Amnestic, Cognitive Disorders, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Psychotic Disorders, Schizophrenic Psychology

Abstract

Various researchers have suggested that traditional psychiatric nosologies may not be as useful in understanding and planning for persons with disordered behavior as might be categories based on empirical research. Although a number of cluster analytic studies have suggested that this approach can generate meaningful typologies of behavior among psychiatric patients, little attention has been paid to the issue of categorization of psychiatric disorders among older chronic inpatients. This paper presents results of a preliminary study targeted at developing a categorization system with such patients. A six-cluster solution was obtained using K-means clustering. The six clusters were "Paranoid Symptoms," "Motor Symptoms," "Depressive Symptoms," "Nonsymptomatic," "Positive Symptoms," and "Negative Symptoms." Results of this study of patients whose psychiatric disorders arose early in life are contrasted with studies of patients whose disorders occurred late in life.

DOI

10.1093/geronj/45.1.P28

Volume

45

Issue

1

First Page

28

Last Page

32

Disciplines

Medical Specialties | Medicine and Health Sciences | Osteopathic Medicine and Osteopathy

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