Vascular dementia revisited:: Diagnosis, pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention

Vascular dementia is an etiologic category that includes clinical forms of dementia caused by ischemic or hemorrhagic cerebrovascular disease, or by ischemic-hypoxic brain lesions of cardiovascular origin. This article describes recent developments in the research on vascular dementia: the recognition of the adjuvant role of vascular factors in Alzheimer's, the recent identification of genetic forms of vascular dementia, progress in the understanding of pathogenetic mechanisms, and new possibilities of early diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.