Am J Psychiatry 1985; 142:1312-1317
Copyright © 1985 by American Psychiatric Association
The concept of subcortical dementia
SJ Huber and GW Paulson
The authors review the concept of subcortical dementia, specifically the
dementia associated with Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, and
progressive supranuclear palsy, all subcortical processes that involve
deterioration of mental abilities. Subcortical dementia affords a unique
opportunity to study the progressive memory loss associated with dementia
because, in contrast to cortical dementias such as Alzheimer's disease,
this relatively circumscribed syndrome does not involve dysfunction of
language (aphasia) and perception (agnosia and apraxia). Research
strategies are proposed to examine the concept of subcortical dementia, an
entity that remains controversial and not well understood. The subcortical
dementias may constitute a group of partially treatable forms of dementia.
