The American journal of psychiatry
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Executive deficits have traditionally been associated with frontal lobe brain damage. They are relevant to a variety of disabling mental conditions, including schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. To measure these deficits, the authors developed the Executive Interview, a 25-item, 15-minute interview. It has been validated among elderly subjects across a wide range of functional impairment. ⋯ Increasing executive dyscontrol is associated with the need for increasing levels of care and supervision. This finding is neither age nor disease specific. Cross-group differences on selected Executive Interview items suggest the existence of disease-specific patterns of failure. Their recognition could prove useful in the identification of anatomically or pathophysiologically distinct subgroups among patients with executive dyscontrol.