Memory Loss, But Not Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s isn’t always the cause of a progressive loss of memory and other mental skills.

According to the July issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter, one cause is vascular dementia, a common form of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer’s disease. Vascular dementia, which accounts for 10 percent to 20 percent of all dementias, occurs when small blood vessels in the brain become narrowed or blocked, causing brain damage.

You may be at risk of vascular dementia if you have certain conditions that affect blood vessels in your brain, such as a history of stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. Risk of vascular dementia also is linked to atherosclerosis — a condition in which fatty deposits (plaques) occur in the inner lining of the arteries. Atherosclerosis is the cause of numerous vascular problems, including heart attack.

While Alzheimer’s disease typically develops gradually and often progresses steadily, vascular dementia is suggested if there’s a history of stroke and an abrupt onset and stepwise progression — periods of stability that are interrupted with abrupt declines. A diagnosis is based on your health history, signs and symptoms and diagnostic imaging tests such as computerized tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

So far, there’s no cure for vascular dementia, but medications may slow its progress. You also can reduce the risk of the disease or slow its progression by controlling high blood pressure and diabetes, not smoking and reducing cholesterol.

Media Contact

newswise

More Information:

http://www.mayo.edu

All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine

This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.

Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors