Clinical evaluation of dementia in Down's syndrome: a preliminary report.

Down's syndrome residents were found to have significantly greater impairment on measures of orientation, attention span, digit span recall, visual memory, object identification and praxis, and were more likely to have pathological released reflexes than age and IQ matched controls. Neuropsychiatric status tended to worsen with advancing age in Down's syndrome, but not in controls. Forty-five percent of DS individuals age 45 or older had a full syndrome of dementia, compared to only 5% of controls. Although further research is necessary, particularly employing larger samples and more detailed medical screening, these results support the association of dementia Alzheimer type with Down's syndrome.