Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T11:17:36.719Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Association Between Quantitative Measures of Dementia and of Senile Change in the Cerebral Grey Matter of Elderly Subjects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

G. Blessed ,
B. E. Tomlinson  and
Martin Roth
G. Blessed
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council Group on the Relation between Functional and Organic Psychiatric Illness, 11 Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne 2, and the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
B. E. Tomlinson
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council Group on the Relation between Functional and Organic Psychiatric Illness, 11 Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne 2, and the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Martin Roth
Affiliation:
Medical Research Council Group on the Relation between Functional and Organic Psychiatric Illness, 11 Framlington Place, Newcastle upon Tyne 2, and the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The ageing of many populations in recent years has directed increasing attention to the social, medical and biological problems of senescence. The psychological changes associated with ageing occupy a central position in inquiries in this field. The expectation of mental disorder shows a steep increase with advancing chronological age, and beyond 75 years a large part of this increase is accounted for by disorders associated with degenerative changes in the central nervous system for which we lack remedies at the present time. Larsson et al. (1963) have estimated that the aggregate morbidity risk for these disorders up to the age of 70 is 0·4 per cent., up to age 75, 1·2 per cent. and up to age 80, 5 per cent. For higher ages estimates were probably less reliable, but the calculated risk up to the age of 90 was 5·2 per cent. In a survey of a random sample of elderly people aged 65 and over in the general population, Kay et al. (1964), found a total of 4·2 per cent. of elderly subjects to be suffering from senile dementia, 2·9 per cent. being mild cases. The condition is generally recognized as being a major cause of serious infirmity among the elderly in psychiatric, geriatric, general medical and community practice alike.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 114 , Issue 512 , July 1968 , pp. 797 - 811
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1968 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alzheimer, A. (1907). “On a peculiar disease of the cerebral cortex” Allg. Z. Psychiat., 64, 146.Google Scholar
Arab, A. (1954). “Plaques séniles et artériosclérose cérébrale; absence de rapports de dépendance entre les deux processus; étude statistique” Rev. Neurol., 91, 22.Google Scholar
Blocq, P., and Marinesco, G. (1892). “Sur les lésions et la pathogénie de l'épilepsie dite essentielle” Sem. med. (Paris), 12, 445.Google Scholar
Corsellis, J. A. N. (1962). Mental Illness and the Ageing Brain. Maudsley Monograph No. 9, London.Google Scholar
Gellerstedt, N. (1932–33). “Our knowledge of cerebral changes in normal involution of old age.” Upsala Läk/Fören, Förh., 38, 193.Google Scholar
Grünthal, E. (1927). “Clinical and anatomical investigations on senile dementia” Z. ges. Neurol. Psychiat., 111, 763.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, B., and Roth, M. (1953). “Psychological test performance in patients over sixty. II. Paraphrenia, arteriosclerotic psychosis and acute confusion” J. ment. Sci., 99, 451.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, D. W. K. (1962). “Outcome and cause of death in mental disorders of old age: a long-term follow-up of functional and organic psychoses” Acta psychiat. Scand., 38, 249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, D. W. K., Beamish, P., and Roth, M. (1964). “Old age mental disorder in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I. A study of prevalence” Brit. J. Psychiat., 110, 146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, D. W. K., Norris, V., and Post, F. (1956). “Prognosis in psychiatric disorders of the elderly; an attempt to define indicators on early death and early recovery” J. ment. Sci., 102, 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, D. W. K., and Roth, M. (1955). “Physical accompaniments of mental disorder in old age” Lancet, ii, 740.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kay, D. W. K., and Roth, M. (1961). “Environmental and hereditary factors in the schizophrenias of old age (‘late paraphrenia’) and their bearing on the general problem of causation in schizophrenia” J. ment. Sci., 107, 649.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kidd, M. (1964). “Alzheimer's disease—an electron microscopical study” Brain, 87, 307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsson, T., Sjgören, T., and Jacobsen, G. (1963). “Senile dementia” Acta psychiat. Scand., 39, Suppl. 167.Google Scholar
Liss, L. (1960). “Senile brain changes, histopathology of the ganglion cells” J. Neuropath. exp. Neurol., 19, 559.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newton, R. D. (1948). “Identity of Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia and their relation to senility” J. ment. Sci., 94, 225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, V., and Post, F. (1955). “Outcome of mental breakdown in the elderly” Brit. med. J., i, 675.Google Scholar
Roth, M. (1955). “The natural history of mental disorders in old age” J. ment. Sci., 101, 281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, M. and Hopkins, B. (1953). “Psychological test performance in patients over sixty. I. Senile psychosis and the affective disorders of old age” J. ment. Sci., 99, 439.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, M. and Morrissey, J. D. (1952). “Problems in the diagnosis and classification of mental disorder in old age” Ibid., 98, 66.Google Scholar
Rothschild, D. (1937). “Pathologic changes in senile psychoses and their psychologic significance” Amer. J. Psychiat., 93, 757.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothschild, D. (1942). “Neuropathologic changes in arteriosclerotic psychoses and their psychiatric significance” Arch. Neurol. Psychiat. (Chic.),48, 417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rothschild, D. (1956). “Senile psychoses and psychoses with arteriosclerosis.” In: Mental Disorders in Late Life (ed. Kaplan, O. J.). California: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Scoville, W. B., and Milner, B. (1957). “Loss of recent memory after bilateral hippocampal lesions” J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiat., 20, 11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shapiro, M. B., Post, F., Löfving, B., and Inglis, J. (1956). “‘Memory function’ in psychiatric patients over sixty; some methodological and diagnostic implications” J. ment. Sci., 102, 233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simchowicz, T. (1910). “Histologische Studien über die senile Demenz” Hist. histopath. Arb., 4, 267.Google Scholar
Sjgören, H., Sourander, P., and Svennerholm, L. (1966). “Clinical, histological and chemical studies on presenile and senile neuropsychiatric diseases” Proc. Fifth Internal. Congr. Neuropathology, Zurich, September 1965. Excerpta Medica Internal. Congr. Series, No. 100, 555.Google Scholar
Sjögren, T., Sjögren, H., and Lindgren, A. G. H. (1952). “Morbus Alzheimer and Morbus Pick: a genetic, clinical and patho-anatomical study” Acta psychiat., Scand. Supplt. 82.Google Scholar
Strecker, E. A., and Ebaugh, F. G. (1947). Practical Clinical Psychiatry. 6th edn. Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Terry, R. D., Gonatas, N. K., and Weiss, M. (1964). “Ultrastructural studies in Alzheimer's presenile dementia” Amer. J. Path., 44, 269.Google Scholar
Tomlinson, B. E. (1966). Personal communication.Google Scholar
Wolf, A. (1959). “Clinical neuropathology in relation to the process of aging.” In: The Process of Aging in the Nervous System. (ed. Birren, J. E.), Springfield, Ill. Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.