The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has updated its Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, including with new information specifically addressed to individuals in the European Economic Area. As described in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, this website utilizes cookies, including for the purpose of offering an optimal online experience and services tailored to your preferences.

Please read the entire Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. By closing this message, browsing this website, continuing the navigation, or otherwise continuing to use the APA's websites, you confirm that you understand and accept the terms of the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use, including the utilization of cookies.

×
ArticleNo Access

LATE RESULTS OF ORBITAL UNDERCUTTING

Report of 76 Patients Undergoing Quantitative Selective Lobotoimies
Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.117.6.525

1. Psychosurgery continues to have definite applications, especially in the involutional and cyclic depressions, the agitated states of the elderly, the better preserved schizophrenics, and the intractable psychoneuroses, especially when suffering from anxiety or tension.

2. It is preferred to shock treatment in those depressions requiring more than short courses of shock treatment because of less emotional blunting, memory loss and relapses.

3. Agitated depressed senile states react more favorably to limited lobotomy operations than those in the younger age group.

4. Complete lobotomy has been replaced by limited selective operations. Undercutting of the orbital cortex offers the advantage of a precise technique under direct vision in an area causing appreciable lift in mood, lessening of anxiety and a minimum personality blunting.

5. The late results in orbital undercutting when studied in the separate categories of depressions, agitated senile states, schizophrenia, pseudoneurotic schizophrenia and intractable psychoneurosis have in most cases continued to show an improvement rather than regression or relapse. It has done so to a far greater degree than was anticipated, especially in schizophrenic patients of high cultural background.

6. Complications, including seizure formation, occur in the early rather than the late follow-up studies.

Access content

To read the fulltext, please use one of the options below to sign in or purchase access.