title: Differential cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease.
abstract: The differentiation between cortical and subcortical dementias requires that the cognitive characteristics of dementias attributable to different causes be discriminable. For large samples of Alzheimer's disease and Huntington's disease patients, distinct cognitive profiles were obtained on the Mini-Mental State Exam. The profile differences were independent of severity of dementia and were sufficiently robust to classify patients as Alzheimer's disease or Huntington's disease with 84% accuracy. The qualitative differences in cognitive functioning may also be typical of other cortical and subcortical dementias.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD 21205.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brandt
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Folstein
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Folstein
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D004493:Education; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D011581:Psychological Tests