The author attempted to study the changes of mental functionings with ageing in the subjects over 50 years of age.
The test scales of the same standard were used in rating the subjects of five different groups as follows:
Group Ⅰ: 52 public personnel (male: 36, female: 16)
Group Ⅱ: 78 subjects who hold the job while staying at home ( male: 65, female: 13)
Group Ⅲ: 182 subjects who stay at home and do not have the job. (male: 100, female: 82)
Group Ⅳ: 63 subjects who say at old people´s homes: (male: 30, female: 33)
Group Ⅴ: 46 mental disorders (male: 28, female 18)
The whole subjects of 421 persons (male: 259, female: 162) were studied into the sex, the groups, the age in 5-year intervals and the score by each test scales. The following results were obtained after statistical analysis.
Ⅰ. There is the increase of cases who are screening with advancing age in the screening tests using both Mental Status Questionaire and Visual Reproduction Test. The major part of excluded subjects ny the screening test are females in the old people´s homes in which 39 cases (69.6%) out of 56 are excluded.
Ⅱ. The more female subjects than the male one are excluded by the screening test, 3.3 times more in female cases (male: 24, female: 79).
Ⅲ. The average scores obtained by Hasegawa´s scale reveal that the score decreases as the ages go up and it is more prominent in the female subjects.
Ⅳ. The aged male subjects gain more scores in the verbal scales as compared with the female subjects.
Ⅴ. Both male and female subjects show the decrease in gaining scores as they get older in the visual reproduction test and it is more prevalent in female subjects of all age groups.
Ⅵ. It is revealed that the performance scores obviousely decrease than the verbal in Group Ⅱ, Ⅲ, Ⅳ and Ⅴ except Group Ⅰ, and the performance scores rapidly decrease as advancing age.
Ⅶ. In the average scoring of the same age group, the male subjects were scored greater than the female and also the subjects who hold the job scored higher than the subjects who do not hold the job.
Ⅷ. The average scores of the subjects are as follows:
MALE, Verbal: 29.09 (M.R.: 78.62), Performance: 8.55 (M.R.: 61.07), total: 37,64 (M.R.: 73.8), V.P. ratio: 0.77,
FEMALE, Verbal: 23.6 (M.R.: 63.78), Performance: 7.2 (M.R.: 51.42), total: 30.8(M.R.L 60.39) V.P. ratio: 0.8
Ⅸ. The systolic blood pressure shows slight increase in both sexes as the age goes up and the ndividual difference are revealed to be great.
Ⅹ. The height shows that it reduces more in the aged females than the male one with increasing age.
A. The loss of the weight is more prominent in the female subjects than the male one as advancing age.
In this study on mental changes of the normal aged subjects as aging after screening of moderate to severe dementias in each group, simple correlation coefficient between the total score and Hasegawa´s score is 0.917 (male), 0.942 (female). Accordingly, the author believe that this study could be a useful guide to detect of the dementing process among the normal aging group and to measure of mental changes with aging.
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