Posttraumatic stress disorder and dementia in Holocaust survivors.

The incidence of mental and somatic sequelae has been shown to be very high in the group of people damaged by the Holocaust. Within the context of internal research, 93 Holocaust survivors suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder have been examined. Patients suffered on average from 4.5 (standard deviation ± 1.8) somatic diagnoses as well as 1.8 (standard deviation ± 0.5) psychiatric diagnoses. A diagnosis of dementia was ascertained according to ICD-10 criteria in 14%. Vascular dementia (66%) dominated over Alzheimer's dementia (23%) and other subtypes (11%).