THE ROLE OF THE ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAM IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF DEMENTIA OF THE ALZHEIMER-TYPE - AN ATTEMPT AT TECHNOLOGY-ASSESSMENT

In a first attempt at technology assessment of the electroencephalogra m (EEG) in the diagnosis of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), th ree conclusions were reached: notwithstanding the well defined clinica l criteria, there remains a need for a laboratory technique to confirm the diagnosis since a 100% accuracy cannot be obtained by clinical me thods only; although the EEG has a high sensitivity in separating AD p atients from normal controls, the sensitivity of the EEG is at present not satisfactory when studying populations with a low prevalence of A D patients; the sensitivity of the EEG is higher or equal to the best other laboratory techniques(magnetic resonance imaging [MRI], computer ized tomography [CT], SPECT, PET) available at the moment. Since the E EG and MRI can be helpful in different aspects of the differential dia gnosis it is argued that all AD patients should be studied at least on ce by EEG as well as by MRI.