A worldwide demographic shift is currently occurring, with rapidly increasing numbers of elderly individuals. Since the incidence of neurodegenerative disease generally increases with age, this entails an increase in dementia prevalence. There are several strong incentives for establishing robust and widely available imaging methods for the early diagnosis of these diseases. Atrophy patterns are evident only late in the disease process, and the distinction from healthy ageing can often be elusive. For early diagnosis, physiologic parameters such as perfusion or metabolism must be assessed. The available modalities all have restricted clinical usefulness. The main aim of this thesis was to advance the clinical usefulness of perfusion and metabolism imaging in patients with neurodegenerative dementia, with a focus on visual assessment. A cohort of patients with neurodegenerative dementia was included, along with an age-matched control group. All subjects underwent MRI, including a pseudocontinuous ASL sequence and FDG-PET. In papers II and III, a subgroup containing both patients and controls underwent a second FDG-PET with reduced dose. In paper IV, the material was combined with a similar cohort from Amsterdam. Paper I showed that spatial smoothing increased the correlation between visually assessed perfusion and metabolism levels as displayed with FDG-PET. However, the distinction between patients and healthy controls was less satisfactory due to false positives. Paper II showed that differences in regional standard uptake value ratios between normal- and low-dose FDG-PET were small and without clinically significant bias. Paper III showed that the diagnostic performance of Z-score maps showing regions of significant deficits in metabolism was highly similar in normal- and low-dose FDG-PET images.  Paper IV showed that ASL perfusion-based Z-score maps can be used for diagnostic purposes with high specificity, but inferior sensitivity, compared to FDG-PET. In conclusion, the included studies address aspects of the visual assessment of perfusion and metabolism neuroimaging, with a focus on clinical usefulness in diagnosing neurodegenerative dementia.

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Syfte: Studiens syfte var att beskriva oral hälsa hos individer med Parkinson sjukdom (PS). Metod:Studiedesignen var i form av allmän litteraturstudie där tre databaser användes för sökning efter vetenskapliga artiklar (DOSS, CINAHL och MEDLINE). Efter tillämpning av inklusions-, exklusionskriterier, passande sökord samt genomförande av kvalitetsgranskning, valdes totalt 19 vetenskapliga artiklar. Resultat: Oral hygien tenderade till att vara sämre hos individer med PS. Resultatet visade att xerostomi och hyposalivation var vanligt förkommande hos individer med PS. Karies, gingivit och parodontit visades även hos individer med PS där bland annat parodontala mätningar visades vara högre till andel hos dessa individer. Andra orala tillstånd som visades bland individer med PS var dregling, dysfagi, halitosis och angulär cheilit. Slutsats: Hos individer med PS visades orala hälsan var sämre jämfört med individer utan PS. Risken att utsättas för orala sjukdomar exempelvis karies, gingivit och parodontit var högre hos individer med PS, där både läkemedelsintag och nedsatt motorik har en inverkan. / Aim: The aim was to describe oral health in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Method: The study design was a general literature study where three databases were used to search for scientific articles (DOSS, CINAHL and MEDLINE). After applying inclusion, exclusion criteria, proper keywords and conducting a quality review, a total of 19 scientific articles were selected. Result: Oral hygiene tended to be worse in patients with PD. The results showed that xerostomia and hyposalivation are common in patients with PD. Caries, gingivitis and periodontitis were also shown among patients with PD where, among other things, periodontal measurements were shown to be higher in proportion in these individuals. Other oral conditions that were shown among individuals with PD were drooling, dysphagia, halitosis and angular cheilitis. Conclusion: Oral health was shown to be worse among individuals with PD compared to individuals without PD. The risk of being exposed to oral diseases such as caries, gingivitis and periodontitis was higher among these individuals where both drug intake and impaired motor skills have an effect.

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