Cerebrolysin and Vascular Dementia
A Look into the Research:
Vascular dementia (VaD) is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The term ‘vascular dementia’ refers to a constellation of cognitive and functional impairments all caused by disordered blood flow to the brain. Vascular dementia can be considered a subset of the larger syndrome of vascular cognitive impairment (VCI), that is all cognitive syndromes associated with a cerebrovascular brain injury. VaD includes dementia caused by ischemic or hemorrhagic cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) or by ischemic hypoxic brain lesions of cardiovascular origin.
Vascular dementia and stroke disease are closely linked, but the terms VaD and poststroke dementia (PSD) are not synonymous. Although most PSD cases are pathologically confirmed as VaD, some have been reported to be other dementia related pathologies, such as AD.
Vascular dementia has traditionally received less attention than AD, yet international epidemiological data suggest a substantial global burden from VaD. The prevalence rate of VaD has been estimated to double every 5.3 years, compared with every 4.5 years for AD. In North America, AD accounts for 44% to 70% of all dementia, while VaD accounts for 14.5% to 20%. Studies in the UK have estimated the incidence rate of AD as 1.59/1000 person years, whilst the incidence rate of VaD was 0.99 cases/1000 person years. The prevalence of VaD among individuals aged 65 years and older was 1.50% in China between 2008 and 2009, while AD was the leading cause of dementia (3.21%). Although earlier studies in Japanese populations demonstrated a greater prevalence of VaD than AD, recent studies have shown that the trend has shifted with no changes in VaD prevalence and increases in AD prevalence over time.
