The Institute of Psychiatry Alzheimer’s Disease Cohort 1986– 1992: part 1— clinical observations

✍ Scribed by Alistair Burns

• Book ID: 102658852
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1996
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 947 KB
• Volume: 11
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6230
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1166(199604)11:4<309::aid-gps456>3.0.co;2-#

✦ Synopsis

heterogeneity in Alzheimer's disease' and encompassed a wide range of clinical and neuroradiological measures. This was to build on earlier work by Raymond and Robin in which morphological brain changes had been documented by the use of computed tomography scanning in three groups of patients-normal elderly volunteers, patients with dementia and patients with depression. These studies will be discussed in detail elsewhere in this volume but, briefly, 50 normal subjects, 40 patients with senile dementia and 41 patients suffering from depression had CT scans with detailed linear measurements and clinical ratings on tests of psychiatric symptomatology (using the Geriatric Mental State Schedule, Copeland et a/., 1976) and measures of cognitive function using the mental test score, the digit copying test, the digit symbol substitution subtest of the WAIS and specific tests for aphasia, apraxia and agnosia. These latter tests were amalgamated to form a parietotemporal dysfunction score. It was the finding of particular clinical and radiological associations of this score plus research from earlier studies by McDonald (1969) and Constantinides (1978) which emphasized that parietal lobe changes were associated with younger age of onset and greater mortality. This set the scene for a prospective study assessing clinical variables associated with greater cognitive decline over time and, ultimately, death. Naguib and Levy (1982) later investigated 10 of the 12 survivors of the earlier study of patients with dementia and repeated the mental test score and CT scans after 2 years. Two subgroups emergedone with no deterioration in mental test score and a