[Problems in differential diagnosis between early presenile dementia and depression in elderly persons (author's transl)].

The difficulties in correct differential diagnosis between depression and early pre-senile dementia syndromes are pointed-out by the AA. They underline that, on the ground of literature reports and clinical experience, the instrumental methods (electroencephalography, cerebral blood flow examination, pneumoencephalography, evoked cerebral responses, etc...) appear of little use in differential diagnosis, if separately considered. A particular attention is called on psychometric tests, in order to worn the non-specialist against any too over-simplified and mechanistic acceptance of test results.