Thought, language, and communication deficits and association with everyday functional outcomes among community-dwelling middle-aged and older adults with schizophrenia
Older adults with schizophrenia experience poorer community integration and social functioning compared to same-age peers with no mental health disorders; these individuals are at elevated risk for functional decline and early institutionalization in long-term care facilities. Deficits in thought, language, and communication (TLC; that is, thought disorder and alogia) are core features of schizophrenia and may worsen with age; however, little research focuses on the functional sequelae of these impairments among older adults with schizophrenia. The present study aimed to examine the relationships among age, TLC deficits, and functional outcomes in a sample of community-dwelling middle-aged and older adults with schizophrenia (N=245; ages 40-85). Participants completed assessments of symptoms, neurocognition, TLC deficits, and functional outcomes. Two different categories of TLC deficits were examined: verbal underproductivity (i.e., alogia) and disconnected speech. Regression analyses, controlling for gender, age, Veteran status, smoking status, cognitive impairment, and symptom severity, found that disconnected speech predicted occupational functioning, while verbal underproductivity predicted capacity to communicate skillfully in semi-structured social situations, as well as community functioning across interpersonal, occupational, and everyday living domains. Exploratory mediation analyses found significant indirect effects of age, through TLC deficits, on certain functional outcomes. Targeted training to improve TLC deficits, especially verbal underproductivity, among older adults with schizophrenia could have downstream effects on community functioning, improving outcomes for a vulnerable group.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 21 April 2022.
All research outputs
#4,045,055
of 28,832,041 outputs
Outputs from Schizophrenia Research
#847
of 6,078 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#61,883
of 335,517 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Schizophrenia Research
#41
of 167 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,832,041 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 6,078 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 6.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 86% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 335,517 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 167 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its contemporaries.
