While diagnosing Alzheimer’s disease, there appear certain difficulties in the correlation of cerebral atrophy and the patient's clinical status.

93 patients were examined.

Study group - 42 patients aged 34-79 with preclinical and clinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease:

1. (1) - patients with high risk of acquiring the disease (those suffering from impaired memory, without any manifestations of dementia, whose 2 or more immediate relatives suffered from Alzheimer’s disease) 6 patients

2. (2) - patients with mild dementia 14

3. (3) - patients with moderate dementia 15

4. (4) - patients with severe dementia 7

Control group - 51 patients aged 28–78 with various kinds of brain lesions accompanied by dementia but not suffering from Alzheimer’s disease:

1. - chronic cerebrovascular insufficiency 21 patients

2. - severe vascular dementia 6

3. - atherosclerotic parkinsonism 14

4. - Binswanger’s disease 6

5. - Parkinson’s disease 4

• In Study group 1, 4 (66.6%) patients showed decrease of 4–8% in the size of the brain temporal lobes.

• In Study group 2, 14 (100%) patients showed decrease of 9–18%.

• In Study group 3, 15 (100%) patients showed decrease of 19–32%.

• In Study group 4, 7 (100%) patients showed decrease of 33–62%.

Control group patients had no similar changes in the temporal lobes.

Structural and morphological changes of the brain characteristic for Alzheimer’s disease are atrophy of the temporal lobes and hippocampus which makes 4–8% in pre-clinical stages of the disease, 9–18% in mild, 19–32% in moderate and 33–62% in severe dementia.