Several studies have reported a relatively stable level of cognitive deficits among patients with schizophrenia regardless of age, while others have suggested continued deterioration with age. We compared the performance of 42 institutionalized patients with schizophrenia and 42 age- and education-matched healthy controls on a semantic and phonemic verbal fluency test. Each group was divided into young participants (<65 years old) and elderly participants (> or =65 years old). We found a fluency condition x diagnostic group x age group interaction on total words produced, a fluency condition x diagnostic group interaction on the number of cluster-related words, and a fluency condition x age group interaction on the number of switches. Patients with schizophrenia generally used similar strategies (i.e., semantic or phonemic cluster-related words and switches) as healthy individuals when generating words, but to a lesser degree. We found a disproportionate decline in the elderly schizophrenic patients relative to that of healthy controls only on the phonemic, relative to the semantic test. This decline in performance appears related to the effects of aging rather than severity or chronicity of illness, duration of institutionalization, or a progressive degenerative process associated with the disorder.