Aims. To examine the relationship between different types of dementia and hippocampal volume. Methods. Hippocampal volume was measured using FL3D sequence magnetic resonance imaging in 26 Alzheimer's, vascular dementia, mixed dementia, and normal pressure hydrocephalus patients and 15 healthy controls and also hippocampal ratio, analyzed. Minimental scale was used to stratify patients on cognitive function impairments. Results. Hippocampal volume and ratio was reduced by 25% in Alzheimer’s disease, 21% in mixed dementia, 11% in vascular dementia and 5% in normal pressure hydrocephalus in comparison to control. Also an asymmetrical decrease in volume of left hippocampus was noted. The severity of dementia increased in accordance to decreasing hippocampal volume. Conclusion. Measurement in hippocampal volume may facilitate in differentiating different types of dementia and in disease progression. There was a correlation between hippocampal volume and severity of cognitive impairment. 1. Introduction Brain ageing is a universal phenomenon and affects all. Normal ageing can be defined as a normal biologic process of the elderly characterized by relative cerebral atrophy without severe compromise of normal cognitive and motor functions. The ageing brain shows volumetric decrease, usually associated with diffuse or focal white matter signal abnormalities. A clear clinical or pathologic cutoff between physiologic and abnormal ageing of the brain does not exist, however. Recent developments in MRI hardware and acquisition techniques hold great promise to more sensitively study brain changes in againg. Structural imaging, historically used to exclude an intracerebral lesion as a cause for dementia, is increasingly playing a role in “ruling in” diagnoses. The recent availability of new treatments for dementia, as well as the importance of subtype-specific management, has renewed interest in the use of brain imaging techniques that can assist in the accurate recognition of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), vascular dementia (VD), mixed dementia (MD), and normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH). MRI has been the primary tool to link hippocampal volume loss with AD firmly. There is also growing interest regarding using MRI in conjunction with biochemical marker of AD (tau protein and amyloid Ab) and identifying early dementia MCI (mild cognitive impairment). Various studies have quantified the amount of hippocampal atrophy in old age and dementia but there is a lack of uniformity regarding the result. There is a paucity of studies in our country regarding the hippocampal volume
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