[Senile dementia in institutions for the elderly--agreement rate between clinical and pathological diagnoses]

A study was performed to assess the occurrence of senile dementia in institutions for the elderly. In a total of 747 cases examined in 1986 we diagnosed 316 (42.3%) to be suffering from dementia. The patients were subdivided by etiology into 4 categories: Vascular type (VD) 51.6%, Alzheimer type (DAT) 21.8%, Mixed type 9.2% and others 17.4%. Subsequently 124 of these demented patients died and autopsies were performed on 104 cases by 1990. Final clinical diagnoses were made and correction of initial diagnoses was necessary in 15 cases. The agreement rate between final clinical and pathological diagnoses was 79.8% for all 104 cases where data was available. For individual categories treated separately, the rates were VD 83.3%, DAT 89.3%, Mixed 64.7% and others 63.6%.