The papers compiled in this supplementum are a selection of the best
con- th tributions presented at the 19 Central-European Neurological
Symposium (CNS 19) held on June 29 - July 1, 1989 in Vienna. The main
topic of this conference was degenerative and age-associated
neurological diseases. In recent decades life expectancy has
dramatically increased, at least in the industrialized countries. This
has led to extreme distortions of the so-called population pyramids that
no longer look like such but begin to almost resemble cylinders. As a
consequence of this "overaging" of the population, diseases that are
associated with age have become much more common than before. It was
thus more than reasonable to devote a congress of the CNS series to
these important neurological diseases. The following fields of interest
are covered: Age-associated memory impairment (AAMI), Alzheimer's and
other dementias, Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders,
stroke and others. Concerning the de men- tias, some papers deal with
diagnosis employing neuro-imaging methods such as MRI, CT, PET and
SPECT, others using electrophysiological methods. An important aspect in
the early preclinical diagnosis of dementia is the inclusion of
neuropsychological tests to enhance the chance of effec- tive early
treatment. Also drugs that are now under clinical investigation are
discussed and preliminary results are presented.
