Auditory and visual event-related potentials in patients suffering from Alzheimer's dementia and multiinfarct dementia, before and after treatment with piracetam.

We have done a study on 7 subjects suffering from Alzheimer's dementia (AD) and 15 subjects suffering from multiinfarct dementia (MID) to see whether they manifest any changes of amplitudes or latencies concerning event-related potentials (ERP) compared to a group of normal controls and how three months of treatment with piracetam affects those changes. We found that the latencies of all waves are longer in the groups of subjects suffering from AD and MID compared to the normal controls, except for the N100 wave, which showed shorter latency in the AD group. Amplitudes were lower in the groups of patients suffering from AD and MID. These changes were most prominent for the P300 wave. Treatment with piracetam reduced those changes in the precognitive part, though it seemed to have no effect on the cognitive part.