The difference between vascular dementia and Alzheimer's.
November 9th 2007 06:03
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Multiple small strokes is the usual cause of vascular dementia when brain tissue is deprived of its essential oxygen and other nutrients.
The usual treatment by way of prevention of further vascular disease in the cerebrum ( brain) is to control blood pressure and use statins to lower cholesterol levels and improve the blood vessels.
A neurologist should also be consulted.
There are drugs that can be used to improve a person's memory.
Sometimes students and airline pilots need such assistance.
A simple intelligence test called the Mini Mental State Examination is used to help assess the degree of the dementia. There are seven stages of the assessment.
Stage four includes an inability to manage personal affairs, becoming easily agitated, having an obvious loss of intellectual ability, a loss of knowledge and interest in current affairs.
Moderately severe is stage five and includes being unable to dress, being incontinent, forgetting major and important family events, being unable to live alone safely.
A somewhat different system uses three grades, with the middle being used for forgetfulness of current events, names, confusion over time, day and place and an inability of recognise familiar surroundings. There can also be conversation difficulties, abnormal repetitiveness and poor comprehension. Personal hygiene and house duties generally suffer and depression or undue anger and aggressiveness may also be noticed.
So the symptoms of the two kinds of dementia can be much the same.
It is not often so easy to distinguish the two and it is only on autopsy that the type of damage can be assessed.
However, there are many people shown on autopsy to demonstrate the tangles and plaques of Alzheimer's who have actually escaped symptoms. These are the ones who have managed by accident or design to regenerate sufficient cross neural connections to compensate for the B-amyloid deposits.
Vascular damage shows up in a different way.
Brief as this explanation is it is hoped that it is helpful in helping people understand that there can be entirely different causes of the dementias demonstrated.
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