Vascular dementia is a general term describing problems with reasoning, planning, judgment, memory and other thought processes caused by brain damage from impaired blood flow to your brain. You can develop vascular dementia after a stroke blocks an artery in your brain, but strokes don’t always cause vascular dementia.
Causes:
Vascular dementia is caused by reduced blood flow to the brain, which damages and eventually kills brain cells.
This is usually due to:
– narrowing of the small blood vessels deep inside the brain, known as sub-cortical vascular dementia or small vessel disease
– a stroke (where the blood supply to part of the brain is suddenly cut off, usually because of a blood clots), called post-stroke dementia or single-infarct dementia
– lots of “mini strokes” that cause tiny but widespread damage to the brain, known as multi-infarct dementia
Some people with vascular dementia also have brain damage caused by Alzheimer’s Disease. This is known as mixed dementia.
Early Signs of Vascular Dementia can Include Mild:
– slowness of thought
– difficulty with planning
– trouble with understanding
– problems with concentration
– changes to your mood or behaviour
– problems with memory and language (but these are not as common as they are in people Alzheimer’s Disease)
At the beginning, these problems may be barely noticeable or mistaken for something else, such as depression. But they indicate some brain damage has happened and that treatment is needed.
Later Symptoms:
The symptoms often continue to get worse over time. This may happen slowly, or in sudden steps every few months or years.
The symptoms depend on the part of the brain that’s affected, but can include:
– significant slowness of thought
– feeling disorientated and confused
– memory loss and difficulty concentrating
– difficulty finding the right words
– severe personality changes, such as becoming aggressive
– depression, mood swings and lack of interest or enthusiasm
– finding it difficult to walk and keep balance, with frequent falls
– Loss of bladder control (incontinence)
– increasing difficulty with daily activities
Some people also have some symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Treatment can help prevent further damage to the brain in people with vascular dementia and may slow down its progression.
But there’s currently no cure for the condition or a way to reverse the damage that’s already happened.
