An update of vascular dementia in association with cerebral amyloid angiopathy

Akihiro Shindo¹⁾, Hidekazu Tomimoto^1,2)

¹⁾Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Mie University
²⁾Department of Dementia Prevention and Therapeutics, Graduate School of Medicine, Mie University

Vascular dementia (VaD) is the second largest common type of dementia after Alzheimer's disease (AD). Various vascular risk factors are associated with not only VaD, but also with AD. Additionally, cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is closely associated with the both AD and VaD, especially in terms of small vessel disease. In this review, we discuss the relationships between VaD, AD and CAA. Hypertensive cerebral small vessel disease induces lacunar infarcts and white matter lesions, whereas CAA causes subcortical hemorrhages and white matter lesions. These two representative types of cerebral small vessel disease are presumed to be interrelated to each other, and may cause cognitive impairment.

Address correspondence to Dr. Akihiro Shindo, Department of Neurology, Graduate School of Medicine, Mie University (2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie 514-8507, Japan)