PARALLEL PSYCHOLOGICAL, PSYCHIATRIC AND PHYSIOLOGICAL FINDINGS IN SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENTS UNDER INSULIN SHOCK TREATMENT

This paper attempts to illustrate a method of quantitatively assessing certain psychological, psychiatric and physiological changes occurring in a group of schizophrenic patients, before, during and after insulin shock therapy. These changes have been recorded in such a way as to permit their graphic presentation, except the electroencephalographic observations which in this series happen not to lend themselves to this type of presentation. Subsequent electroencephalographic observations suggest that it will bet possible to include their graphic presentation in a later report. The paper represents an effort to correlate simultaneous observations on a small group of schizophrenic patients, and suggests a fair correlation between the clinical psychiatric rating, psychometric rating and a lesser correlation between these two observations and the basal metabolic rate.

Five catatonics in this small group, showing marked psychomotor inertia, suggest that such patients show an abnormal fast frequency in the electroencephalogram.

Further work is now in progress to include sugar and insulin tolerance observations along with the basal metabolic rate, psychometric, psychiatric and electroencephalographic observations in a larger series than that presented in this paper.