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The epidemiology of psychosis in dementia
Iracema Leroi1, Argyro Voulgari, John C S Breitner
1Neuropsychiatry Service, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
Objective:
Authors compared delusions, hallucinations, and misidentification delusions in Alzheimer disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) patients.
Methods:
The authors report data on the prevalence, severity, clinical, and demographic associations of these symptoms in a population sample of 260 persons with dementia, examined with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory.
Results:
The primary finding was that there was no difference in psychosis as a whole, or in delusions and hallucinations, between AD and VaD. Also, in AD, female gender appeared to be a risk factor for delusions; subjects in an earlier stage of dementia showed fewer delusions.
Conclusion:
The profile of delusions and hallucinations seen is different from that seen in schizophrenia, further supporting the hypothesis that AD-associated psychosis is a distinct phenomenological syndrome.