Homicide and dementia in older adults: the key role of dysexecutive function.

To the Editor: Homicide committed by older adults is an extreme and infrequent outcome of violence that has a prevalence ranging from 1% to 4%.1–4 An association of mild and moderate dementia with homicide has been reported.1,2,5–9 Although risk factors of homicide in demented patients remain unknown, dysexecutive syndrome could be a cause. The reported case highlights this issue and shows that neuropsychiatric evaluation of older murderers could be useful to understand their acting out.