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Computed tomography of the brain was used in evaluating demented and nondemented elderly people. The incidence of convulutional atrophy and ventricular enlargement correlated well with pathologic and pneumoencephalographic examination of a similar population. Computed tomography also showed certain instances of dementia without atrophy and evidence of atrophy without dementia. The absence of brain atrophy in a demented patient should prompt a search for a potentially treatable cause of the dementia. The authors discuss criteria for diagnosing atrophy by computed tomography and conclude that, because of its noninvasive nature, it is a valuable aid in screening demented patients for treatable diseases.
Huckman et al. (Tue,) studied this question.