What are the differences between Altzeimers and Vascular Dementia?

Question

I have been diagnosed with white matter ischemic disease and have found a scary correlation with the above conditions. Is there any way to slow down any of these conditions?
Thank you for your answers and God Bless You!

Answer 1

Well, vascular dementia is basically a series of small (and sometimes not so small) strokes that over time add up to cause an impairment of memory and function that qualifies as dementia. It can be prevented (or slowed) in all the same ways you can reduce your chances of having a stroke, low cholesterol diet, no smoking, basically whatever is good for the heart is good for the brain.
Alzheimer's disease is something else entirely, we're not sure exactly what causes it, nor exactly how to prevent it (apart from remaining active, which seems to help), the mechanism by which is causes dementia is different as well.

Answer 2

I work in a nursing home and a care home, where all the residents are EMI (Elderly Mentally Infirm). I have read every single care plan and many of them say Vascular Dementia overlapping into Alzheimers. It's impossible to look at one resident and say 'He/she has vascular dementia' and then look at another one and say 'He/she has Alzheimers'. I think the only time this can become quite distinct is when you work on high dependency units, and all the residents have advanced Alzheimers. They are totally disorientated in time, place, etc, they can no longer read or write, sometimes their speech is unintelligible, they can no longer feed themselves, often they lose all interest in eating and drinking, occasionally they are aggressive, they are always doubly incontinent, etc. They are extremely vulnerable people and need a lot of looking after, a lot of care and reassurance. But OF COURSE so do people with vascular dementia. Dementia/Alzheimers show no discrimination. It has nothing to do with 'intelligence'. If they haven't totally lost the power of speech, what you find is that they will tell you the same things over and over and over, short term memory is gone, and they will also ask you the same questions over and over ... I do sit and watch them sometimes and wish I could be allowed inside that head for 24 hours to see just what it's like. One thing that has very frequently struck me - how many of the residents I work with ask me about their mothers. They wait for their mothers to visit them, they want to telephone their mothers, they ask me to find their mother's address so that they can write, they say things like 'I see my mother in this place sometimes but I never quite catch her, but I know she's here somewhere, I suppose I'll just have to wait' etc and these are residents in their 80s and 90s. There but for the grace of God go you and I ... Hardest ones to cope with are the (few) early onset Alzheimers, people younger than me. I haven't answered your question in medical terms, only in the terms of experience. There is a test that people with dementia can take which shows how 'bad' their dementia is, and if it's into the Alzheimers area.

Answer 3

They are two different forms of dementia. Vascular dementia is caused by strokes. Alzheimer's is a complex of symptoms including plaque build-up on the neurons, neuron death due to plaque & tangles, tangles of dead neurons, and brain atrophy.
There are drugs to slow the symptoms of Alzheimer's but no cure yet.
Good luck.

Answer 4

Do you mean Alzheimer's.

Dementia means lost of memory, for your case should be vascular caused due to loss of blood to the white matter of ur brain.

In laymans term, you would need to supply your brain with sufficient blood if not will cause the death of ur brain.
You would have to know what is blocking ur blood supply too, izzit thrombosis?

Anyway, there are commerical drugs out there for alzhemier all in the source link.