Underweight and overweight cases among the mentally retarded.

The body mass index (BMI) was calculated at the age of 20 for all the 132 survivors (83%) out of the 159 mentally retarded individuals born in 1966 in Northern Finland. Reliable information was acquired for 112 cases (84.8%). The mean BMI for these cases did not deviate significantly from that for an average Finnish population at age 20-29 years. It was found that 41.5% of the slightly retarded cases (IQ 35-70) and 28.6% of the seriously retarded ones (IQ less than 35) were of ideal weight (BMI 20-24), while 9.8% of all the retarded individuals were moderately obese (BMI greater than 30) and 7.1% seriously so (BMI greater than or equal to 32). Ninety-one per cent of the seriously obese cases lived with their parents and did not participate in any occupational therapy or work. A total of 29.5% of the mentally retarded subjects were underweight (BMI less than 20), a condition which would seem to be above all a problem for seriously retarded individuals and an obvious consequence of the different feeding and dietary problems connected with their multiple disabilities.

Development of bowel and bladder control in the mentally retarded.

For the mentally retarded, bowel and bladder control are important prerequisites for an independent life. A study of these functions was made in a cohort of children born in Northern Finland in 1966. Relevant data up to the age of 20 years were obtained for 105 of the 132 children with mental retardation (IQ less than 70) who were alive at that age. 80 per cent had attained bowel control at a mean age of 4.2 years, but 30.5 per cent were still encopretic at seven years, and 19 per cent at the age of 20 years. Full bladder control had been achieved by 62.9 per cent at the age of seven and by 82.9 per cent at the age of 20. It is concluded that systematic, appropriate toilet training could improve these figures markedly.

Outcome studies on schizophrenic psychoses in Helsinki.

This paper deals with the prognosis of schizophrenic psychoses in Helsinki in 1950-1955, 1960-1965, 1965-1970, 1970-1975, and 1975-1980. The first 4 cohorts each include a sample of 100 patients taken in 1950, 1960, 1965, and 1970. The patients were admitted for the first time to a psychiatric hospital because of schizophrenic and paranoid psychoses. The 1975 material includes all (n = 94) first admissions for schizophrenia, fulfilling the DSM-III criteria of schizophrenia or schizophreniform psychosis.

Prenatal loss of father and psychiatric disorders.

To test the role of maternal stress during pregnancy in psychiatric and behavior disorders, a retrospective epidemiological study was conducted, using the Finnish population register for persons born between 1925 and 1957. One hundred sixty-seven persons were detected whose fathers had died before their children's births; a control group comprised 168 persons whose fathers died during the first year of their children's lives. The number of diagnosed schizophrenics treated in psychiatric hospitals and the number of persons committing crimes were significantly higher in the index than in the control group. The incidence of alcoholism and personality disorders was relatively high in both groups. The index psychiatric cases had a low frequency of birth complications, whereas those of the control group were high. The results suggest that especially during months 3 to 5 and 9 to 10 of pregnancy, maternal stress may increase the risk of the child for psychiatric disorders, perhaps mediated through the inborn temperament of the child.

Plasma testosterone concentrations in alcoholics.

Plasma testosterone concentrations were normal in 17 hospitalized alcoholics after a large dose of alcohol and in 16 Skid Row alcoholics. The findings fail to support the idea that the direct effects of alcohol on steroid metabolism cause gynecomastia and testicular atrophy.

The daily rhythm of plasma tryptophan and tyrosine in depression.

The study dealt with the level of and diurnal alterations in the concentration of tryptophan, free tryptophan and tyrosine in the blood plasma of 20 inhibited depression patients and 10 healthy controls. The results suggested that there was no distinct relationship between either the total plasma tryptophan or plasma tyrosine level and depression. On the other hand, the free plasma tryptophan level was, at all the times of day at which measurements were made, either significantly or almost significantly higher in the patients than in the controls. It was further found that the results of measurement were related to the patients' clinical improvement, as measured by the Hamilton test, in such a way that after four weeks of treatment the free plasma tryptophan level in 'poorly improved' patients continued to be significantly higher in comparison with the controls, whereas the values for the 'well improved' patient group did not differ greatly from the corresponding values for the control group any longer. It may be hypothesized that the rise in the free plasma tryptophan in depressive patients might represent an effort made by the peripheral body to compensate for the slowed-up serotonin metabolism of the brain, whereby the tryptophan mobilized from the periphery would serve as a sort of 'endogenous antidepressant' provided by the organism itself.

A study of attempted suicides in urban versus rural areas, with a follow-up.

The group of subjects consisted of 44 patients (attempters) who were admitted to hospital for treatment because of attempted suicide during a 3-month period in Norther Savo (in Eastern Finland), another 44 patients (non-attempters) admitted to hospital in the same period for other reasons serving as controls. The number of women was the same in both groups, and so was, in consequence, the number of men. The study compared the attempters with the non-attempters and, in addition, the patients coming from urban areas with those coming from rural areas, the ratio of the urban to the rural patients being the same in both groups. The study was based on personal psychiatric interviews with the patients, which took place in each case both immediately following the patient's admission and precisely 3 months afterwards. The results showed that schizophrenia was significantly more frequent in the rural than in the urban attempter group. By contrast, alcoholism and alcohol abuse were more frequent in the urban than in the rural attempter group. Compared with the urban patients, the rural patients tended to be physically more seriously desordered. Poisoning by drugs was a significantly more frequent means of attempted suicide in the urban than in th rural group. The patients in the latter group, again, had resorted oftener to the so-called "active" methods of attempted suicide. Of the attempters, 25% attempted suicide anew during the 3-month follow-up period, the corresponding figure for the non-attempter group being only 6%. During the follow-up period, a greater number of suicidal attempts was made by the patients in the rural group than by those in the urban group, and, as regards the intent to succeed, the attempts of the former were more serious than those of the latter. The so-called "active" methods were used more often by rural than by urban patients also during the follow-up period. All in all, the self-destructive behaviour exhibited during the follow-up period was graver in the rural than in the urban group.

Self-poisoning with follow-up considerations.

One hundred patients who in 1963 had attempted self-poisoning and were subsequently admitted to the intoxication ward of a psychiatric hospital were studied twice: immediately after the attempted self-poisoning and 8 years after the attempt. It was found that within the follow-up period a total of nine patients had died, four of whom had committed suicide. The risk of suicide per years is .5%. According to the literature the range of the annual suicide risk is .9% to 2.5%.