Diagnosed With Dementia. CT Scan Report Suggests Age Related Involutional Changes. Help Understand The Findings In Report

Posted on Wed, 3 Apr 2013

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Wed, 3 Apr 2013 Answered on

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 Last reviewed on

Question : My father has early stage dementia and has recently had a CT scan. The report says: There are age related involutional changes. There is periventricular white matter low attenuation in keeping with small vessel disease. There is some high density noted in the right sigmoid and transverse sinus, which may relate to sinus thrombosis. We asked the Dr what this meant and he didn't really explain so would appreciate your translation to simple language that we can understand.

many thanks

Answered by Dr. Shailja Puri (39 minutes later)

Hello,

Thanks for your query.

The CT scan report reveals that there are age related changes in the brain tissue.
The brain consists of two types of maters.

The superficial substance is called gray matter and the deeper is called white matter.

The white mater is composed of myelinated nerves (nerves with a covering of a fat layer called myelin).
Senile changes start appearing in the white mater. Senile changes are related to age. These changes include atrophy (shrinkage) of brain tissue especially white mater.

These atrophic changes are responsible for features of dementia or forgetfulness.
These changes are quite expected at 80 years of age.

Besides there are some changes in the vascular channels (blood carrying channels) of the brain. There are broad channels in the brain called sinuses.

One of these sinuses shows features of thrombosis i.e. clotting of blood in these channels.

I hope I am able to explain the report to you in simple words.

If you have more queries, I will be glad to answer.

Dr Shailja P Wahal

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Raju A.T