MEASUREMENT OF MENTAL DETERIORATION IN DEMENTIA PRAÆCOX
Abstract
The Babcock test is based on the assumption that the language ability of a deteriorating patient is the most resistive to the ravages of the disease, that the difference between the vocabulary and non-vocabulary tests indicates the degree of deterioration.
One hundred and ten dementia præcox patients showed a definite inferiority in their performance of a group of non-vocabulary tests compared with their ability shown in the vocabulary test. This inferiority may be expressed in percentages and was found to be 53.4 per cent in the performance of the "memory of paragraph" test.
It was noticed that with the longer duration of the disease and the deepening of the deteriorating process the size of the inefficiency index grew.
This test, when found to be scientifically sound, may be profitably used as an auxiliary criterion to differentiate amentia from dementia and benign mental processes from malign mental afflictions.
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