Alzheimer type dementia Clinical study of Alzheimer type dementia : Initial symptome and variation of it's clinical corse(Senile Dementia of Alzheimer Type)

For the accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer type dementia (ATD) at the early stage, the adequete study of the first and initial symptome of ATD is required. At this moment Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Senile dementia of Alzheimer type (SDAT) are classified on the basis of it's onset year, but the classification is uncertain yet. We examined sixtythree cases [male: 22, female: 41, mean onset year: 72.4±8.2 (SD)] of Alzheimer type dementia, diagnosed with DSM-III-R and MRI, to clarify the initial and major symptomes and deteriorated period. Result: The initial major symptome is amnesia (45%), the second to forth are wandering (11%), deliruim (9%), and character change (5%), i. e. psychiatric or behevioral disorders are another initial symptome of Alzheimer type dementia. In thertyseven cases of long term follow up study, the deteriorative periods are rapid and uniform profile in the most cases of the presenile (under 66 years old) onset group, and slowly progress course in late senile (over 76 years old) group, but several type progressive courses were seen in the middle senile (65 to 75 years old) onset group. Thus the bihevioral disorder of ATD is another important symoptome so well as amnesia to the eary diagnosis. And we suggest the classification of ATD is based better on the clinical severelity, such as symptomatic profile of dementia and deteriorative severelity, than the onset year