Alzheimer's And Dementia News: Are Vascular Diseases Signs?

Vascular diseases in the brain has been contributing to Alzheimer's and dementia.

According to Psych Central, researchers from Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center in Chicago are speculating that vascular diseases in the brain are connected to dementia because diseases of the large and small vessels found in the brain are not uncommon on people with old age.

The lead researcher Dr. Zoe Arvanitakis, claimed that the large and small vessels diseases have effects on dementia and thinking abilities, independently of one another, and independently of the common causes of dementia such as Alzheimer's pathology and strokes.

The researchers gathered 1,143 individuals over the age of 65 and analyzed their medical and pathological data for two studies: The Religious Orders Study and the Rush Memory and Aging Project. 42 percent total of roughly 478 individuals were found out to have developed Alzheimer's while 39 percent (445) had severe atherosclerosis and the remaining 35 percent (401) had brain arteriolosclerosis which means stiffening of small artery walls.

According to News Medical, the findings for the research were published in the British Journal "The Lancet Neurology".  The results show that "atherosclerosis and arteriolosclerosis were linked to a reduction in cognitive skills, including memory, and these associations were present in persons with and without dementia. Furthermore, the worse the brain vessel disease, the higher the chance of dementia."

Arvanitakis claimed that the study is not meant to predict the cause of Alzheimer's but it strongly suggests that the vessel disease plays a role in dementia.

Alzheimer's disease is a common type of dementia. The disease leads to memory loss and abilities that could interfere with the daily life. People aged 65 or older are the ones usually affected by the disease. Alzheimer's is not part of the normal aging process and worsens over time. Cures for the disease hasn't been found yet but researchers continue to seek for it.