Comparison of the Efficacy between Risperidone and Quetiapine in Elderly Patients with Delirium

OBJECTIVES: Many studies showed that risperidone and olanzapine in the treatment of delirium were similar to haloperidol, in side effects were superior to that. Quetiapine is frequently used in delirious patients. However, the studies of quetiapine in the treatment of delirium are very few. This study was designed to compare the efficacy of risperidone and quetiapine in elderly patients with delirium. METHODS: We divided 2 groups (risperidone and quetiapine) of elderly patients with delirium. We compared the two groups of elderly patients with delirium by Korean Version of Delirium Rating Scale (K-DRS) and Korean Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE) at baseline and 1 week later. RESULTS: Our results showed that risperidone and quetiapine were efficacious in the treatment of elderly patients with delirium according to using K-DRS and K-MMSE. There were no significant differences in the degree of effects in both drugs. CONCLUSION: We compared the efficacy of risperidone and quetiapine in the treatment of delirium. Quetiapine was as efficacious as risperidone in the treatment of the elderly patients with delirium. In future, the sample size need to be increased in the studies of delirium. And the evaluation of long-term side effects related to quetiapine need to be performed.

Low-Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (LORETA) Source Imaging Compared with Structural Brain Imaging in Patients having Organic Brain Lesion / 신경정신의학

OBJECTIVES: Patients with organic brain lesion can produce unique slow waves (delta and theta) in the EEG. Basic assumption of this study was that the low resolution electro magnetic tomography (LORETA), an inverse source localization program, can provide functional images representing increased slow wave activity in these patients compared to normal subjects. METHODS: The current study was performed by 18 channels digital EEG for 10 patients whose organic deficit have been visually confirmed by CT or MRI. The source images of slow wave (1-7 Hz) frequency were produced by LORETA-key program. RESULTS: We found that in eight out of ten subjects, LORETA successfully found out the source regions which were very closely matched to their original brain lesions. However in two subjects whose organic brain lesions were too small (<1 cm) and located out of gray matter, we failed to find any increased slow wave activity compared with normal control. CONCLUSION: We can conclude that LORETA could be a useful method to provide functional imaging in patients with gray matter deficits in their brain. Its usefulness and limitations were discussed.