The aged patients which appealed to out-patient psychiatric clinic for thefirst time

160 patients over 60 years of age appealed to gerontologic unit of out-pati ent psychiatric clinic for the first time. The patients were divided into t wo main groups: with organic mental disorders (OMD) and with functional men tal disorders (FMD) (79 and 81 patients, respectively). In the group of OMD the main form of disturbances were cases with dementia (74,4%) mainly of t he Alzheimer's type, and cerebral vascular dementia. In 25,3% of the patien ts the cognitive disturbances didn't attain the level of dementia. In a gro up of patients with different forms of dementia a high frequency of comorbi d mental pathology was observed (83%) - confusional states, delusions, depr essive conditions as well as disturbed behavior (67,7%) that was one of the reasons for consulting a psychiatrist. In FMD group the prevailing patholo gy were depressions, both of the major (37,1%) and mild (34,6%) forms. The remaining cases were characterized by delusions (10,1%), anxiety-phobic (7, 6%) states and somatoform disturbances (5,1%). Among the patients both of O MD and FMD groups it was possible to diagnose approximately 3-4 different s omatic diseases; vascular and gastrointestinal disorders were met more freq uently. The study of contribution of brain computer tomography (CT) to diag nosis of mental pathology (according to ICD-10), has demonstrated that in 3 0,8% of the cases it was decisive, in 41% it confirmed the clinical data an d in 21,8% CT provide additional data (detecting latent cerebral vascular d amage). And only in 6,4% of the cases CT fails to give definite information in diagnostically complicated cases. In 26,6% of the patients with FMD, CT of brain had detected symptoms of mild vascular pathology.