The Clinical Usefulness of Beta-Amyloid Positron Emission Tomography Imaging in the Elderly Patients: Case Series & Brief Review

The aim was to evaluate the diagnostic utility of beta-amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) in elderly patients with cognitive impairment in the clinical setting. Five subjects underwent beta-amyloid PET imaging to explore the cerebral beta-amyloid deposition. The two male patients with minor neurocognitive disorder due to Alzheimer's disease, who displayed similar degree of cognitive impairment and medial temporal atrophy but different in apolipoprotein E4 status, both showed negative for beta-amyloid PET. On the other hand, a female major neurocognitive disorder due to probable Alzheimer's disease patient was tested positive for beta-amyloid PET, with increased beta-amyloid density in frontal and parietal lobes. Beta-amyloid PET was also used for the differential diagnosis of neurocognitive disorder from other psychiatric disorders in two elderly patients. The results were negative but assisted the diagnositic confirmation. A female patient was determined to be a case of late-onset schizophrenia and a male patient was determined as delirium due to minor traumatic brain injury, persistent. Beta-amyloid PET imaging was able to demonstrate cerebral beta-amyloid deposition in major neurocognitive disorder due to probable Alzheimer's disease in visual scale. However, further studies are needed for its clinical utility in the minor neurocognitive disorders. Moreover, beta-amyloid PET imaging may provide additional information in diagnosing primary psychiatric disorders with new onset in the old age.

A Comparative Study of Computerized Memory Test and The Korean version of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Packet for Assessing Memory Function in the Elderly

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of a newly developed computerized memory diagnostic system (MDS) with the Korean version of the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Packet (CERAD-K). METHODS: Subtests of the MDS and CERAD-K, including the auditory-verbal, visuo-spatial, and working memory tests, were administered to 43 adults aged 60 to 74 years. We calculated the correlations between the subtest scores of the MDS and CERAD-K to examine the concurrent validity of the MDS. RESULTS: We found significant correlations between the subtest scores in the verbal-auditory memory, including immediate recall, delayed recall, and delayed recognition. The working memory subtest scores between the MDS and CERAD-K also showed a significant positive correlation. CONCLUSION: We verified the concurrent validity of the memory subtests in the MDS for the elderly. The results of the present study suggest that the MDS could be a valuable tool for an efficient and valid assessment of memory function.