[Neurological characteristics of cerebral atrophy in middle-aged and elderly patients].

Altogether 131 elderly and senile patients with chronic cerebrovascular pathology associated with minimum atrophic alterations, with the external, internal and mixed types of cerebral atrophy (CA) were examined. The linear, volumetric and densitometric parameters were made use of in assaying the data obtained during computer-aided tomography (CT). The CA types were delimited on the basis of the volumetric CT readings. The most pronounced clinical and neuropsychological alterations were found in patients with the internal and mixed CA types. The patients belonging to these groups had symptoms pointing to dysfunction of the frontal parts of the brain. The patients with the external and mixed CA types manifested a decrease of the density in the convex parts of cerebral hemispheres, whereas those with the internal CA type a decrease of the density in the area of subcortical ganglia. The data obtained attest to extreme heterogeneity of the atrophic alterations seen in the brain of elderly and senile patients with chronic cerebrovascular pathology. The patho- and etiogenetically different processes are likely to underlie such heterogeneity. This requires further studies.