Abstract
The authors investigated psychiatric aspects of leprosy in patients in Oku Komyoen National Sanatorium. The results were as follows: The subjects consisted of 301 males and 200 females with the mean age of 66.4 years.
About 87% of the subjects were complicated with somatic diseases other than leprosy. Ocular disease was the most common, followed by gastrointestinal disease and neuralgia. ADL was not impaired in 82.6% of the total subjects. This trend was better than those of the demented in the community and of the aged at nursing-homes.
By using Karasawa's scale to delineate the degree of mental senility, intellectual impairment, mostly mild, was observed in 18.2% of the total subjects. The combined prevalence of moderate and severe dementia was 7.7% of the subjects aged over 60 by the method of Mental Status Questionnaire. This rate was lower as compared with the figure at nursing-homes, but higher than that in the community previously reported by other investigators.
Psychiatric symptoms were observed in 18.0% of the subjects, and hypochondriasis was the most common, followed by sleep disturbance and depression. In order to determine the causative factors of psychiatric disturbunces, a further socio-psychological study remains to be done.
