Cognitive Deficits in Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and Huntington’s Chorea

Since the description of the currently somewhat controversial distinction between “cortical” and “subcortical” dementia (Albert et al., 1974), it is an important issue whether dementias arising from different causative factors exhibit qualitatively different patterns of cognitive deficit. Despite many differences, dementia of Alzheimer’s type (DAT), dementia in Parkinson’s disease (PD), and Huntington’s disease (HD) share many common neuropathological, neurochemical and neuropsychological features (Brown and Marsden, 1988).