A Genetic Study of Affective Illness in Patients over 50

Abstract

The genetic evidence concerning affective illness of later life is still conflicting and the relationship of such conditions to the manic-depressive psychosis unclear. Kallman (1955) believed that, genetically, involutional melancholia bore a closer relationship to schizophrenia than to the manic-depressive psychosis. An increased risk for schizophrenia amongst the relatives of such patients was not observed by Kay (1959) and Stenstedt (1952). Both these writers do however describe a lower loading for manic-depressive psychosis than would be found amongst the relations of manic-depressive patients, though a much higher incidence than in the general population. Both Stenstedt and Kay assumed that they were dealing with a heterogeneous group of patients containing both psychotic and neurotic depressions.