Delusions in Alzheimer's Disease

Yong Tae Kwak; YoungSoon Yang; Min-Seong Koo

doi:10.12779/dnd.2014.13.3.63

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Kwak, Yang, and Koo: Delusions in Alzheimer's Disease

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Dementia and Neurocognitive Disorders 2014; 13(3): 63-73.

Published online: 30 September 2014

DOI: https://doi.org/10.12779/dnd.2014.13.3.63

Delusions in Alzheimer's Disease

Yong Tae Kwak, M.D.^*, YoungSoon Yang, M.D.^†, Min-Seong Koo, M.D.^‡

^*Department of Neurology, Hyoja Geriatric Hospital, Yongin, Korea.

^†Department of Neurology, Seoul Veterans Hospital, Seoul, Korea.

^‡Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, Kwandong University, Gangnung, Korea.

Address for correspondence: Yong Tae Kwak, M.D. Department of Neurology, Hyoja Geriatric Hospital, 1-30 Jungbu-daero 874beon-gil, Giheung-gu, Yongin 446-512, Korea. Tel: +82-31-288-0602, Fax: +82-31-288-0539, kwakdr@gmail.com

Received 15 July 2014 Revised 24 August 2014 Accepted 24 August 2014

(open-access):

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with cognitive and functional impairment as well as neuropsychiatric complications, including psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations. Recent studies strongly suggest that delusions should be separated from hallucinations. While AD with delusions is a phenotypically distinct from AD without delusions, subtypes of delusions may also define further distinct clinical entities. There has been also considerable debate as to whether delusions in patients with AD differ etiologically, phenomenologically, and therapeutically from delusions in other primary psychiatric illnesses. In other words, whether they are caused by changes to key areas of the brain that have been linked to the presence of delusions. This has led to speculation that these symptoms may respond better to certain drugs such as cholinesterase inhibitors. Integrating the epidemiology, clinical phenomenology, neuropathological and genetic literature for delusions in AD allows us to speculate on pathophysiology and is essential to making progress in the area of delusions in AD.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, Delusions, Subtypes, Cholinesterase inhibitors

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Comparison of psychosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) with schizophrenia in elderly patients

Notes

We have no conflicts of interests.

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