A statistical study of the factor of age in the manic-depressive psychoses

Abstract

Students of public health have long been accustomed to stress the relation of age variations to the incidence of physical disease. Similar variations have been noted in mental disease. In a recent textbook of psychiatry, the authors wrote as follows : '~ The part played by age in causation is an indirect one, and is a function of the changes in the mental outlook and in the tissues, which accompany the passage of the years. Certain stresses fall more particularly in certain age periods". 1 In this study we shall analyze the manic-depressive psychoses with respect to some of these age variations. The particular questions to be studied are the following: What is the average age of first admissions with manic-depressive psychoses ? What degree of variation do we find in their age ,distributions ? How do the rates of first admission per 100,000 of general population vary with age ? How are these rates affected by environment ? What are the variations in the rates of recovery and improvement with respect to age ? What relation is there between age and the duration of the manic attack in recovered cases ? The data under analysis were taken from the statistical reports and files of the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene, and from the report on Patients in Hospitals for Mental Disease, 1923, issued by the United States Bureau of the Census.