VaD cognitive impairments

Question 1

Subcortical vs cortical

Answer 1

Often used to distinguish patterns of VaD and AD
- However; oversimplification to name VaD subcortical

Question 2

Episodic memory

Answer 2

Cortical dementia
- Consolidation deficit
- Recall and recognition equally impaired
- Forgetting rates rapid and severe

Subcortical dementia
- Retrieval deficit
- Recognition less impaired than recall
- Slow and near normal forgetting rates

Question 3

Attention and WM

Answer 3

cortical dementia
- Mild to no deficit in attention
- mild deficit in working memory

Subcortical dementia
- Prominent deficit in both attention and WM

Question 4

White matter abnormalities

Answer 4

The amount of WMA in persons w subcortical VaD is associated with poorer EF performance

However; no association between WMA severity and MMSE score

Question 5

Recent study on cognitive impairment in VaD

Answer 5

With post-mortem confirmed AD and VaD, they found evidence against the idea that EF is more impaired in VaD:

memory: AD < VCI
cognitive EF: VCI = AD
Behavioural EF: AD < VCI