Alzheimer's Society: Vascular Dementia

Many people aren’t aware of vascular dementia, and some of those who are aware of it misunderstand the disease. It’s very important to be educated on how the disease could affect you or someone you care about, and how you maybe able to deal with it.

Vascular dementia is the first form of dementia, which is caused by damage to the brain through deprivation of oxygenated blood. If areas of the brain are not getting oxygen then part of it will die causing the vascular dementia.

The term ‘dementia’ describes a set of symptoms which can include loss of memory, mood changes and problems with communication and reasoning. These symptoms occur when the brain is damaged by certain conditions and diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. 
Age is the greatest risk factor for dementia. Dementia affects one in 14 people over the age of 65 and one in six over the age of 80. However, dementia is not restricted to older people: in the UK, there are over 17,000 people under the age of 65 with dementia, although this figure is likely to be an underestimate.

If the oxygen supply to the brain fails, brain cells may die. The symptoms of vascular dementia can occur either suddenly, following a stroke, or over time, through a series of small strokes.

Dementia is caused when the brain is damaged by diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body disease, a series of strokes or even a group of symptoms which may result from brain injury, vitamin/hormonal imbalance, drugs and alcohol. These diseases have factors in common and can cause a person to have their mental

     It is inevitable that eventually each of us will grow old and begin to face more and more health problems as our age rises. Elderly people are challenged by many illnesses and diseases that unfortunately, are incurable. One disease that becomes more common as people age is Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s a common cause and a form of dementia and can severely damage a patient’s cognitive functions and can ultimately cause death. Living with Alzheimer’s disease can be saddening for both the sufferer and the family. Family and friends will find it very hard to cope when a loved one begins slipping away and losing memory of who they are.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s is not a disease developed with age, rather it is a disease that can start earlier in life and progress as a person ages. It starts out small. The little things that average people forget. Brain cells are damaged when the sickness begins to develop which leads to the inability to retain information or memory, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Brain cells end up dying and normal functions disappear. Nerve cells die due to the buildup of protein within the brain. These proteins, referred to as plaques and tangles, are a normal sign of aging. An excessive amount of protein buildup

Dementia is characterized as a condition where the mental processes of cognition and memory start to deteriorate. It is described as a syndrome that hinders the daily lives of those who have it and is characterized by memory and thinking impairment. The most common form of dementia is Alzheimer’s Disease and the second most common is vascular dementia. Dementia is a syndrome occurring usually, but not limited, to people over the age of 40 and is due to brain damage caused by natural deteriorating, stroke or can be brought on by factors such as excessive drinking or drug abuse. Dementia is best cared for in its early stages and, therefore, an early diagnosis is essential. Recognizing the symptoms by both the dementia patient and the

Vascular dementia is a decline in thinking skills caused by conditions that block or reduce blood flow to the brain, depriving brain cells of vital oxygen and nutrients. Conditions that can block blood flow to the brain are generally transient ischemic attacks (TIA’s) or strokes. When these occur, often major brain blood vessels are damaged and blocked causing effects on personality, ways of thinking and problem solving, and generally can coexist with changes linked with other types of dementia.

This paper will discuss the relationship between the aging process and key diseases associated with aging. Examples of aging-associated diseases include cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegenerative diseases (López-Otín, Blasco, Partridge, Serrano, & Kroemer, 2013, p. 1194). Of these, we will discuss in-depth recent studies that have linked aging with Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. These diseases affect a significant proportion of the population over the age of 65 and place a considerable burden on the American health care system. Therefore, a better understanding of how they are related to aging and each other can result in the adoption of innovative treatments and declined risk for older adults.

Alzheimer’s disease is a very slowly progressive disease that occurs inside the brain in which is characterized by damage of memory. Also this type of disease can lead into interruption in language, problem solving, planning and perception. The chance of a person developing Alzheimer’s disease increases enormously after the age of 70 (Crystal, 2009). Also people who are over the age of 85 have over a 50 percent chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease. This type of disease is not at all normal in the aging process and is also not something that happens out of no where in a person’s life.

Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) (2014) defined vascular dementia as an illness where an individual’s arteries in the brain are blocked and the brain is starved of oxygen. This leads to a blockage resulting in mini or major strokes. Nazarko (2013) suggested that dementia is a progressive loss of mental ability which can cause sufferers to experience visual hallucinations and experience difficulty in making decisions. Furthermore, Nazarko (2015) maintained that communicating with dementia sufferers can be difficult due to age related problems such as hearing and visual impairment. She also mentioned that the physical change in dementia sufferers affects the way they perceive and interpret the world.

VD is the second most common type of dementia; consisting of 10 to 30 percent and it is due to dead nerve cells in infected vessels. This is often caused by transient ischemic attacks (Miller, 2009). The two widely known forms of vascular dementia is Multi-infarct dementia (MD) and Binswanger’s disease (BD) also known as sub cortical vascular dementia. MD is a result of Transient Ischaemic Attacks (TIA) that harms the cortex of the brain which is involved with memory. BD is related to stroke and high blood pressure and affects the “white matter” in the brain causing movement difficulties and emotional imbalances (Alzheimer’s Association, 2011). Late adulthood, diabetes mellitus, recurrent strokes and low education are common risk factors of VD however there are preventive measures like smoking, diabetes and sedentary lifestyle (Miller, 2009).

Alzheimer is a disease that affects the elderly most. The disease was discovered by Dr. Alois Alzheimer in the year 1906 when he was examining a female’s brain. He found out that the woman displayed memory loss, language problems and some inexplicable changes in behavior. The disease was named after the doctor who was a German psychiatrist and a neuropathologist. Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disorder that leads to memory loss, personality changes, and language problems (Gilbert & Julie 2). The disease is mostly diagnosed in people over the age of 65 years, though there is a small minority of people under the age of 50 who get the disease. Studies show that 1% of a whole population aged between the ages 65-75 have severe

As age increases, we can expect some loss of heart, lung, joint, and sexual functioning. Some loss of brain cells and mental efficiency is a normal part of