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We have previously demonstrated, in small groups of patients receiving either electric convulsive treatments or imipramine therapy, changes in calcium metabolism associated with recovery from states of depression (5, 7). Other investigators have also reported somewhat unusual changes in calcium physiology among depressed patients or during the administration of antidepressant therapies. These include low cerebrospinal fluid calcium levels (4), changes in blood calcium during electric convulsive treatments (10), and alterations in bound and ionized fractions of blood calcium during imipramine therapy (3). It is the purpose of this report to describe and discuss the changes in urinary calcium excretion in the relatively large series of patients we have now acquired.

Visual perception was evaluated with standard tests for 26 hospitalized patients with schizophrenia, 23 hospitalized patients with affective disorders, and 60 control subjects. Both patient groups differed significantly from the control group on low amplitude of accommodation, esophoria or exophoria, vergence duction suppression, and convergence and divergence recovery ductions. Only the affective group showed significantly reduced fusion at near distance, and only the schizophrenic group differed significantly from control subjects on disorganized left apex formation. These findings appear to confirm the presence of visual perceptual disorders that can cause disability in psychiatric patients, with important research and rehabilitation implications.