Delusions of Korean patients with Alzheimer's disease: study of drug-naïve patients.

AIM

Although delusions are one of the most prominent psychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer's disease (AD), research on the subtypes, prevalence and associated factors of delusions, especially in drug (psychotropic)-naïve patients, has been limited.

METHODS

Patients (n = 230) with psychotropic-naïve (drug-naïve) probable AD were assessed with the Korean Neuropsychiatric Inventory (K-NPI) delusion subscale at the time of initial presentation. After determining the four delusion subtypes (paranoid, misidentification, mixed and expansive delusion), clinical characteristics and prevalence of each type were compared.

RESULTS

Delusions were present in 63 patients (27.4%). Among those patients, paranoid delusions were the most common type of delusion (38, 60.3%), followed by misidentification delusions (12, 19.0%), then mixed delusions (11, 17.5%). Expansive delusions are rare in drug-naïve probable AD patients. Compared with paranoid delusions, misidentification and mixed delusions appeared at a later stage, and were associated with greater cognitive impairment. Mixed delusions were associated with hallucinations.

CONCLUSIONS

This study showed that delusions are associated with global cognitive dysfunction. Although paranoid delusions are the most common, misidentification and mixed delusions comprised significant portions of delusions in AD patients, and appeared in the later stages of dementia.