I haven't been here on the forum in a very long time, though I have appreciated all of the help I received here. My mother died on December 26th, after suffering through a combination of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.

I've been going through a lot of paperwork lately (Mom grew up during the Depression and dind't throw out anything!) and I just discovered the discharge papers from when she had a pacemaker put in, before she started showing signs of dementia. The CT scan of the head results showed "altered MS" Could this have been a sign that the dementia was brewing even then? I know that symptoms do not become evident early on, at least not all the time. But it was interesting to me because it was right AFTER she got the pacemaker that my brother and I started noticing changes.

I meant to add - does "altered MS" mean "altered mental status"?

I do not see how a ct scan could detect altered mental status so I assume that it refers to something else though I do not know what.

I asked my husband (a radiologist). "Altered MS" does mean altered mental status but there's no way that would be in the findings section of a report. (It could be in the symptoms section - though clearly not in your mom's case.) He said that he thinks you're reading the report wrong or there's an error in how it was written. I think only her doctor could answer this question. Wish I had a clearer answer. Sorry.
ECR

ECR is correct. The "altered mental status" would have been information provided which was one of the reasons for the study to assist the radiologist when "reading" the results of the scan.

It would NOT be part of the last paragraphs which would be the "Impression" part. It would be in a different section giving some historical information on the patient.

What you want to read as important is the "Impression" portion of the MRI interpretation.