62 MINIMAL BRAIN DYSFUNCTION SYNDROME IN CHILDHOOD: LATE OUTCOME IN RELATION TO INITIAL PRESENTATION AND INITIAL DIAGNOSTIC CATEGORIES

Abstract

73 patients, diagnosed in childhood as having minimal brain dysfunction, were followed into adolescence and early adult life (average duration 12.4 years). Delayed speech (74%), delayed motor development (41%), and tantrums (60%) did not show any significant correlation with outcome. Early school problems(84%) immaturity (62%), social problems (56%), fearfulness and anxiety (55%), and anti-social behavior in childhood (18%) all correlated in various specific ways with psychiatric symptoms (e.g. anxiety, depression, obsessiveness, tics) and with psychopathological states (personality disorders, including schizoid, passive-aggressive, inadequate and anti-social). Initially patients were differentiated diagnostically on the basis of clinical severity and neurological findings into developmental lag(38%) and organic brain syndrome (62%). At follow-up 58% continued to manifest organic brain syndrome. Learning disability, present initially in 92%, persisted in 67%. Schizoid personality traits, present initially in 32%, were present finally in 44%. The original diagnosis of developmental lag strongly correlated with the findings on follow up of passive-aggressive personality, anti-social personality, and depressive symptoms. The initial diagnosis of organic brain syndrome correlated positively with final diagnoses of organic brain syndrome, inadequate personality, schizoid personality, paranoid personality, and anxiety symptoms. Only 5 individuals (7%) were free of psychiatric disorder at follow-up.

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