The Japanese journal of neuropsychology

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ArticleTitle	Neuropsychology of the Aged
Language	J
AuthorList	Makoto Iwata
Affiliation	Neurological Institute, Tokyo Women's Medical University
Publication	Japanese Journal of Neuropsychology: 19 (1), 30-34, 2003
Received
Accepted
Abstract	The recent advances of neuroimaging techniques make us to easily diagnose "brain atrophy" in the aged subjects without much consideration about the underlying pathology. Those who are told that their brain was atrophied, often become severly depressed and completely lose confidence in their social role in daily life. Detailed pathological studies, however, have revealed that there is a large overlap in the brain weight between the healthy aged and the patients with Alzheimer type dementia. As it is actually quite hard to discriminate pathologically atrophied brain from normally shrunken brain in the neuroimaging studies of the aged subjects, we should use the term "brain atrophy" very carefully to those subjects. Moreover, every neuropsychological study must be applied in consideration of the physical and psychological conditions of the subjects. "Decency" is the most important key word to remember in examining the aged subjects in neuropsychological studies.
Keywords	the aged, aging, brain atrophy, neuropsychological tests, dementia