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A 82-year old woman had, since the age of 50, a history of 9 phases of monopolar endogenous depression with abnormal intestinal sensations and hypochondriac delusions that appeared as delusional parasitosis in 5 of these phases. Differential diagnosis and therapeutic aspects are discussed.

The 27 items of the Lawson-Dementia-Rating-Scale (DRS)--1977--were translated into German and validated by different examinations with indoor psycho-geriatric patients.68 hospitalized patients of a psycho-geriatric department (mean age --75.9 years) with the diagnosis of senile dementia were investigated with the new version of the DRS. As validation criteria we compared the DRS with SCAG, SKT, ZVT-G, and the CGI. In a subgroup of 24 patients the P-300 component (latency) was elicited by an auditory oddball paradigm.Significant correlations were found between a battery of rating-scales, performance tests, the CGI and the DRS. The latency of the P-300 component of the event related auditory evoked potentials distinguished between the degree of severity of dementia obtained with the DRS and the other validation criteria. Table 1. Correlation-coefficients between the DRS and the different criteria n = 68 n = 24 P-300/la-SCAG SKT ZVT-G CGI tency DRS 0.61"* 0.78** 0.71"* 0.83** 0.48* (*~a0.05; ** ~crWith the linear analysis of variance, statistical significant differences between mild, moderate, and severe dementia with the DRS could be shown.The DRS proved to be valid in the diagnosis of dementia and to distinguish degrees of dementia in hospitalized psycho-geriatric patients.

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