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Dating back to Bleuler, investigators have found cognitive decline in patients with schizophrenia (NEJM JW Psychiatry Aug 2015 and JAMA Psychiatry 2015; 72:803). These researchers gave neurocognitive tests to 445 patients 2 and 20 years after a first hospitalization for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, affective psychosis, or other psychosis; 195 patients had assessments at both points.
Over the 18 years of follow-up, patients had significant declines in verbal memory, visual memory, attention and processing speed, and abstraction–executive function. Deterioration was similar in magnitude across the disorders, but performance was worse at both timepoints in older and schizophrenia-spectrum patients. In cross-sectional comparisons at year 20…