Acute confusional states in the elderly: a radiological evaluation.

Computered tomography of the head was carried out on 35 patients who received a hospital diagnosis of delirium according to the DSM-III, and 25 controls without cognitive disturbance. There were no statistically significant differences in the mean age of the groups or in the cortical atrophy score as measured by the mean width of the four largest sulci in the three uppermost tomographic cuts. Instead, the delirious patients differed from the controls in the frontal horn and cella media indices, in the width of the third ventricle and Sylvian fissure at insula on the left side. There was also a significant excess of low attenuation, brain infarct-type areas in the delirious patients. The study confirms the marked predisposing role of the structural brain diseases (primary degenerative and multi-infarct type dementias, Parkinsonism) in the development of acute delirium in elderly patients.