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Accelerated mental aging in alcoholic patients
Author(s) -
Holden Kritina L.,
McLaughlin Edward J.,
Reilly Edward L.,
Overall John E.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/1097-4679(198803)44:2<286::aid-jclp2270440233>3.0.co;2-1
Subject(s) - psychology , discriminant function analysis , wechsler adult intelligence scale , context (archaeology) , normative , clinical psychology , discriminant validity , mental age , psychiatry , psychometrics , cognition , statistics , paleontology , philosophy , mathematics , epistemology , internal consistency , biology
Discriminant function and polynomial regression methods were used to define a mental age function from scale score profile patterns found in the WAIS manual. Values on the mental age function then were calculated from WAIS scale score profiles for 164 alcoholics in the age range 35 to 74. Validity of the mental age function was evident in clear discrimination between chronological age groups in the alcoholic sample. As compared with WAIS normative values for the mental age function, the mean mental age for patients in the alcoholic sample was advanced approximately 7 years over agematched normals. Unweighted means ANOVA revealed the accelerated mental aging of alcoholic patients to be statistically significant. This finding is discussed in the context of other research that supports a premature aging hypothesis.