Stress reactions resulting from the relocation of an aged population.

Abstract

Fifty-four subjects from 64 to 94 years of age were investigated for their stress reactions following their relocation from one site to another. Forty of them, 16 men and 24 women, were psychiatrically normal, while the remainder (eight men and six women) were suffering from a psychosis, which in all cases, except one, was of organic type. There was no statistically significant difference between the ages of the men and women, and of the normals and psychotics. The same was true in the case of the body weight, except that the men weighed more than the women. Plasma corticoid (PC) levels were determined two to nine days before relocation and eight to 17 days afterwards. One-third of the subjects made no complaints in regard to their health within four months of relocation (NC 33%), while the rest either reported symptoms for which there did not appear to be any apparent organic cause (WS 43%) or presented organic signs (OS 24%). Most of the complaints in the WS category were related to the abdomen, while most of those in the OS group were either due to respiratory infections or cardiovascular conditions. The relative percentage of persons falling into these three categories was essentially similar in normal men and in normal women and in psychotic men and psychotic women. However, the psychotics had a significantly higher incidence of OS persons and a significantly lower number of NC subjects than did the normals, while the incidence of WS was essentially the same in these two groups. Following relocation the PC levels increased in normal men, but decreased in normal women. Furthermore, a greater PC increase was observed in men of the OS group than in those of the WS category, who in turn showed a greater increase than the NC males. This was not observed in the women. Men in each of the NC, WS and OS categories had higher PC levels than women of the same category, and psychotics higher than normals. Twenty-five per cent of the normal men died within the first six months of relocation but none of the normal women, a statistically significant difference. Within 23 months of relocation reliably more psychotics died than normals. In conclusion, normal aged men appeared to suffer more from the relocation than normal aged women, and psychotic aged persons more than psychiatrically normal subjects of the same age.