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Biomedical subjects

W Danziger

Publications and source records attributed to W Danziger.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

A longitudinal EEG study of mild senile dementia of Alzheimer type: changes at 1 year and at 2.5 years.

This longitudinal study of resting EEGs compared patients with senile dementia of Alzheimer type (SDAT) and healthy controls at 3 times of testing over a 2.5 year period. Measures included the mean EEG frequency as well as the percentage of power in alpha, beta, theta, and delta frequency bands obtained from power spectral analysis. The values from occipital to vertex derivations were averaged for the left and right hemispheres. In healthy older adults delta increased, and both beta and mean frequency decreased over the study period; there was no significant change in theta or alpha. In the SDAT group, all 5 EEG measures changed significantly; there were increases in delta and theta, and decreases in beta, alpha and mean frequency. Theta percentage power distinguished between all 4 stages of dementia (control, mild, moderate and severe). Other EEG measures discriminated only at certain stages. In the mild stage of SDAT theta, beta and mean frequency were already different from control values. In the moderate stage, these differences persisted, and alpha became different. Delta was the last to change, and in the present small sample of those with severe SDAT the difference had not yet reached significance.

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Volumetric measurements of the cerebrospinal fluid spaces in demented subjects and controls.

Forty-seven subjects 65 to 80 years of age, of whom 20 were demented and 27 were normal, were studied by computed tomography. Volumetric indices of ventricular (V%) and sulcal size (S%) were determined by pixel counts without knowledge of clinical status. V% was 5.30 (+/- 1.92) for the controls and 10.46 (+/- 4.78) for the demented subjects. S% was 6.14 (+/- 2.51) for the controls and 10.61 (+/- 3.32) for the demented subjects. In each case, differences between the two groups were significant (P less than 0.0001). When a subsample of 29 scans were analyzed using linear and volumetric measurements, the linear measurements showed less pronounced differences between the demented subjects and the controls. These findings explain the conflicting results of different investigators concerning variations in ventricular and sulcal size in dementia and normal aging.

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Brain atrophy in dementia judged by CT scan ranking.

In order to further investigate the relationships of brain atrophy, age, and dementia, computed tomographic (CT) scans on two groups of subjects aged 65-80 years were rank-ordered according to ventricular and sulcal size. Each group contained subjects with mild senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) and matched controls. In both experiments there was a strong correlation between these rank orders, ventricular size, and the clinical dementia rating. There was also a weaker but significant correlation between rank ordering and sulcal size. This suggests that brain atrophy in excess of that normal for age alone occurs in early SDAT.

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Aging, dementia, and brain atrophy: a longitudinal computed tomographic study.

Studies involving linear measurements of ventricular size and a volumetric measurement of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) space were performed on elderly subjects with mild dementia of the Alzheimer type and on age-matched controls. Forty-five subjects were studied twice at a 1 year interval; linear ventricular measurements showed not only a greater degree but a more rapid evolution of brain atrophy in individuals with mild dementia as compared with controls. An additional 12 normal subjects were studied twice over a 1 year period with volumetric estimates of the CSF space, which demonstrated development of significant brain atrophy within 1 year, while linear measurements on the same scans showed no significant change. The volumetric method is regarded as a more sensitive indicator of brain volume and is potentially useful in further studies in dementia.

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