• H Sattel, C Geiger-Kabisch, U Schreiter-Gasser, C Besthorn, and H Förstl.
• Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit, Sonderforschungsbereich 258, Mannheim.
• Z Gerontol. 1993 Jul 1; 26 (4): 275-9.

AbstractA semi-structured interview was administered to the closest relatives of 50 patients with presenile or senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. The disturbances most frequently reported were: wandering/pacing (56%, cumulative percentage), aggressive behavior (44%) and - significantly related to more severe stages of dementia - apathy/loss of drive (58%), eating disturbances (46%) and disturbances of the sleep-waking cycle (32%). Depressive symptoms were observed in 58% of the patients, preferentially in the early stages of illness with preserved insight. Signs of paranoid delusions (46%), delusional misidentification (34%), visual (32%) and auditory hallucinations (16%) were encountered temporarily in a large number of patients. The importance of "non-cognitive" symptoms in Alzheimer's disease is underlined by their subjective significance for the caregivers.

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