By applying a finer-grained perspective on affective instability than those of previous personality disorder studies, this study points to patterns of affective experience characteristic of patients with borderline personality disorder.

University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test data from control subjects (n = 63), patients with mild cognitive impairment (n = 147), and patients with Alzheimer's disease (n = 100) were analyzed to derive an optimal subset of items related to risk for Alzheimer's disease (ie, healthy through mild cognitive impairment to early and moderate disease stages). The derived 10-item scale performed comparably with the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test in classifying subjects, and it strongly predicted conversion to Alzheimer's disease on follow-up evaluation in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Independent replication is needed to validate these findings.

This study examines the degree to which two putative biologically influenced personality traits, affective instability and impulsive aggression, are associated with some of the interpersonal and intrapsychic disturbances of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and with choice of defense mechanism. In a sample of 152 personality disorder patients, affective instability and impulsive aggression were measured. Defense mechanisms were assessed in 140 of these patients using the Defensive Style Questionnaire (DSQ). The correlations between the traits of affective instability and impulsive aggression and the eight DSM-III-R criteria for borderline personality disorder and 20 DSQ defenses were examined. Affective instability was significantly correlated with the DSM-III-R criteria of identity disturbance, chronic emptiness or boredom, inappropriate anger, suicidality, and the affective instability criteria. It also was associated with the defenses of splitting, projection, acting out, passive aggression, undoing, and autistic fantasy. Impulsive aggression was related to unstable interpersonal relationships, inappropriate anger and impulsiveness and with the defense of acting out. It was negatively correlated with the defenses of suppression and reaction formation. A number of the interpersonal and experiential disturbances and defense mechanisms that are features of BPD are associated with the traits of affective instability and impulsive aggression among patients with personality disorders.

In 520 patients with parkinsonism seen over eight years, 168 (32%) had moderate to marked dementia. Although the demented patients were older than the nondemented patients (70.4 versus 65.5 years), the incidence of dementia in Parkinson's disease (PD) was tenfold higher than among controls (similarly aged spouses of PD patients), and dementia is held to be related more to the disease than to age. Demented patients, in addition to being older, developed PD later, were more severely involved in a shorter time, and responded less well to levodopa. It is suggested that PD with dementia may represent a different disorder from PD without dementia.