Abstract
Near-Infrared Spectroscopy has become one of the most important measurement tools of the brain's function. In this study we used a Near-Infrared Spectroscopy while performing a category fluency task to diagnose dementia. 50 dementia patients (age 83.3±6.7, 12 male, 38 female, Mini Mental State Examination: 0-22) and 16 health elderly controls (age 80.5±4.6, 2 male, 14 female, Mini Mental State Examination: 24-30) were instructed to produce a noun belonging to the category of vegetables while being scanned by the Near-Infrared Spectroscopy. Our results showed better test results and also a significant larger prefrontal blood volume among the healthy elderly control subjects compared to those subjects previously diagnosed with dementia. This leads us to conclude that the measurement of the prefrontal blood volume using a Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, usually used to diagnose other psychiatric disorders, could also be used as another tool to diagnose dementia.
