Dementia praecox - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dementia praecox is a term in Latin which Emil Kraepelin invented and contrasted with a mental illness called manic-depressive insanity ^[1] which is re-described as Bipolar disorder today.^[2] For Kraepelin and other psychiatrists, people diagnosed with manic-depressive insanity often had episodes in which they seemed normal, while people with dementia praecox did not. Dementia is a mental illness which mostly occurs in old people.

Morel first describes as a term "démence précoce" (the words are French: in English précoce is translated as precocious - meaning early in age: young) in his work of 1852 ^[3][4]

Morel used his description to describe the condition of a teenager who retreated from society, and started to show symptoms similar to those of dementia.^[5]

Kraepelin used dementia praecox for diseases that were characterized by a destruction of the personality, with damage to the mood and the will.^[6]

The theory of praecox of dementia could not be proved. In 1911, Eugen Bleuler said that dementia praecox was actually schizophrenia. The word schizophrenia was not used widely before 1925.