title: Cognitive impairment in mild general paresis of the insane: AD-like pattern.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  We investigated the clinical and cognitive features of patients with mild general paresis of the insane (GPI) in comparison to Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, mild frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients and normal elderly individuals.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twelve patients with mild GPI, 24 patients with mild AD, 11 patients with mild FTD and 36 healthy subjects participated in the current study. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was used to assess memory, language, attention, executive function, visuospatial ability, etc. In addition, cranial MRI were also obtained from the 3 patient groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mild GPI showed a similar pattern of cognitive impairments in memory, language and executive function to mild AD, but a mixed pattern of dissimilarities to mild FTD. Mild GPI patients had more complaints and positive signs in the nervous system than mild AD patients, and cranial MRI results showed that mild GPI patients usually had atrophy of the medial temporal lobe.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There is an overall decline in cognitive functions of mild GPI patients, which is comparable to that in AD patients, suggesting that there is a wide range of structural changes in the brains of mild GPI patients as well. However, further studies are needed to verify whether these structural changes are similar to those in AD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, Huashan Hospital, Shanghai Medical College, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
authors.forename: Jianhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Qihao
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Pingyu
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Qianhua
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Zhen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Hong
mesh_terms: D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D057180:Frontotemporal Dementia / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D009494:Neurosyphilis / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010291:Paresis / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index