From 1943, when Leo Kanner originally described autism, and to the first objective criteria for “infantile autism” in DSM-III and the inclusion of Asperger's disorder in DSM-IV, the subsequent classification scheme for autistic disorders has led to a substantial change with the 2013 issuance of the DSM-5 by including subcategories into one umbrella diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Baker, 2013). ASD is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder, characterized by social and communication impairments and restricted, stereotypical patterns of behavior (Baker, 2013). It is currently expected that most, or all of the actual cases of ASD, are identified in a timely way (i.e. in early childhood). However, there are many undiagnosed older adults who may have met the current diagnostic criteria for ASD as children, but never received such a diagnosis due to the fact it had yet to be established. In addition, some patients with relatively less impairing phenotypes may escape formal diagnosis in childhood, only to later be diagnosed in adulthood. Nevertheless, the first generation of diagnosed patients with ASD is now in old age. Many such ASD patients have needed family and institutional support for their lives subsequent to childhood diagnosis. Due to aging and death of their parents and other supportive figures leading to a loss of social structures, there is no better time than now for the medical community to act.

Arnaoutoglou et al. (2017) reported that “Ishihara Color Vision Test – 38 Plate” was useful for the differential diagnosis of dementia between Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Vascular Dementia (VaD). The authors used sensitivity/specificity analysis, presenting 80.6% and 87.5% to discriminate AD and VaD patients when an optimal (32.5) cut-off value of performance was used. The authors cited a reference of the fact that AD patients suffered from a non-specific type of color blindness (Pache et al., 2003), and I have a query on their study with special reference to statistical method.

The authors would like to apologise for an error made in the acknowledgement of the above mentioned article.

In the acknowledgement section of the article, paragraph ‘This project was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR), at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, under grant no. (G-282/ 724246/1436). The authors, therefore, acknowledge with thanks DSR for technical and financial support’.

Should read:

This project was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR), at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, under grant no. (G-282-246-36). The authors, therefore, acknowledge with thanks DSR for technical and financial support’.

Information on efficacy and safety of electroconvulsive therapy in patients with dementia is sparse. The current case report describes a patient suffering from severe depression and dementia who received electroconvulsive therapy with S-ketamine anesthesia at our psychiatric intensive care unit for the treatment of her therapy-resistant catatonic stupor. The patient's condition improved remarkably through the treatment. By the end of 16 electroconvulsive therapy sessions, her catatonic symptoms remitted entirely, her affect was brighter and she performed markedly better at the cognitive testing.

We present a 56-year-old patient suffering from frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17). The history included a three-generation pedigree and the patient was found to be a mutation carrier. The diagnosis was hindered by late appearance of the hypokinetic movement disorder. For clinicians, it is important to consider rare neurodegenerative disease variants in early-onset familial dementia syndromes with behavioral, cognitive, and motor symptoms.

We read the findings by Cecato et al. (2016) with great interest. In their study, naming the rhinoceros discriminated between patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) but not healthy controls (HC). Of note, HC participants were significantly younger than aMCI and AD patients. All participants were administered the original version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) instrument.

The prevalence of major depression ranges from 1% to 16% among elderly living in private households or in institutions, and in similar settings “patients” with clinically relevant depressive symptoms vary between 7.2% and 49% (Djernes, 2006). Community studies looking at point prevalence of depression in older people suggest rates between 10% and 20% depending on cultural situations (Rodda et al., 2011).