Correlation between Brain Measurements and Cognitive Functions in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients

‘Correlation between Brain Measurements and Cognitive Functions in Alzheimer’s Disease Patients’ master thesis by Agne Gendvilaite. The aim of the study: evaluation of correlation between brain measurments and cognitive functions in Alzheimer’s Disease patients. Tasks: 1. Evaluating Alzheimer’s Disease patients’ cognitive functions using Mini-Mental Test Examination and Blessed Dementia scale. 2. Evaluating size of hippocampus using head CT radiological data. 3. Evaluating size of brain measurements (fissure of Sylvius, temporal horns, lateral ventricles) using head CT radiological data. 4. Evaluating size of frontal cortex using head CT radiological data. 5. Evaluating correlation between size of brain measurements and cognitive functions. Materials and methods: In this retrospective study 57 patients with Alzheimer’s Disease were enrolled. All patients were consulted in Lithuanian University of Health Sciences and head CT scan was done. In this study only patients with AD diagnosis, head CT scan and MMSE test results were involved. Statistical analysis was performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 23.0 (SPSS 23.0). P-values <0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: Data of 57 patients were analyzed: 44 (77.2 %) of them were females and 13 (22.8 %) males. The mean age of patients were 75.9 years old, mean result of MMSE were 16.33 points and 12.07 for Blessed Dementia scale (DS). Statistically significan correlation between hippocampal sizes and MMSE were found (p=0.016). Also, we noticed statistically significant correlations between lateral ventricles temporal horns and DS (p=0.004), temporal horns and age (p=0.029). Comparing hippocampal sizes and DS statistically significant negative correlation was found (p=0.022). Also, we noticed correlation between Sylvian fissures and DS (p=0.004). At an average right side hippocampus was 58,31±24,74 mm² and left side hippocampus 63,86±25,61 mm² - statistically significant correlation (p