Multi-infarct vascular dementia

The cause of Alzheimer s disease is unknown, but genetic factors clearly play a role. One clue supporting this view is provided by the observation that individuals with Down syndrome, a common cause of mental retardation, frequently develop a dementia similar to Alzheimer s disease during early adulthood. Vascular dementia, which is also called multi-infarct dementia, results from the accumulation of tiny strokes. Individually, these strokes or infarcts are too small to cause any noticeable problem, but as they accumulate, they produce deficits similar to Alzheimer s disease. Other neurological diseases such as Parkinson s disease, Pick s disease, and Huntington s disease cause slow deterioration of the brain that ultimately leads to a degenerative dementia. 

Other disorders that may kill cholinergic and other neurons, thus leading to memory loss. Vascular dementia, formerly multi-infarct dementia, is characterized by dementia that classically has a more stepwise downhill course as compared with Alzheimer s disease, which has a more smoothly progressive downhill course. Multi-infact dementia is caused by multiple strokes, which damage the brain sufficiently to cause dementia and often cause focal neurological signs and symptoms as well. Normal pressure hydrocephalus can cause dementia from dilated cerebral ventricles. Creutzfeldt-... 

Vascular dementia Multi-infarct Diffuse white matter disease (Binswanger s dementia) Control of blood pressure... 

Multi-infarct dementia (cortical vascular dementia)... 

Vascular dementia (multi-iirfarct dementia, small vessel dementia, infarcts of... 

Cerebral ischemic injury is a common cause of dementia in older adults. Combination cases of vascular dementia and Alzheimer disease are also quite frequent. Vascular causes of dementia include subcortical vascular dementia, multi-infarct dementia, ischemic dementia, cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL), and leuko-araiosis (see the Cerebrovascular Diseases section earlier in this chapter). ... 

In future work, we wiU extend and validate the different models to other class of diseases. Approximately 1-1.5 % of the French population suffer from dementia and the causes of dementia are neurological disorders such as Alzheimer s disease (which causes 50 %-70 % of aU dementia), blood flow-related (vascular) disorders such as multi-infarct diseases, inherited disorders such as Huntington s disease, and infections such as HIV [15]. In fact, we would like to simulate the patient s progress in order to forecast and to analyze the need for long, medium and short-term care. This allows us to evaluate human, financial and physical resources in the future. 

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