[Dementia and internal diseases: incidence of internal diseases in Alzheimer dementia, vascular dementia and other dementing diseases].

The medical histories and postmortems of 30 patients with neuropathologically verified Alzheimer's disease were compared with a group of 20 patients suffering from vascular dementia and a group of 10 patients with other forms of dementia. The total numbers of clinically or pathologically diagnosed medical disorders did not show significant differences between the different forms of dementia. Metabolic, infectious, degenerative, and malignant disorders occurred with similar frequency in all investigated groups. Cardiovascular diseases were only slightly more common in patients with vascular dementia. In contrast to several earlier clinical or epidemiological studies, it has to be concluded that patients with Alzheimer's dementia cannot be considered physically "healthier" than patients with other forms of dementia. Therefore, they need the same medical attention as do other elderly demented patients.