Dementia and Aging: Cardiovascular Dementia
United Psychological Services specializes in the accurate and treatment diagnosis cardiovascular dementia.
Cardiovascular Dementia Facts:
- Third leading cause of death
- Affects 700,000 persons yearly: two-thirds survive
- Depression is common with a 20 percent occurrence rate
- Generally the result of various diverse processes involving the brain and heart
- There can be silent events that occur in the brain leading to cognitive decline that the person remains unaware of Hypertension and history of stroke results in increased risk of dementia
- Slow process in the brain
- Incidence rate in women rises from 0.3 to 1.36 with the age range of 65 to 69, increasing to 9.3 for the age of 85 years and older
- Incidence rate for men is between 1.3 and 2.2 for age 65 to 69, rising to 9.3 and 15.9 for the age of 90 years and older
Common Risk Factors:
Genetic factors versus modifiable risk factors
Genetic Factors
- Age
- Diabetes
- Family History
Modifiable Risk Factors
- Smoking
- Poor diet
- Overweight
- Poor nutrition
- Smoking
- Lack of exercise
- High blood pressure
- Stress and anxiety
- Sleep apnea
- Alcohol abuse (3 or more drinks per day for 3 to 4 days per week found to be significantly associated with risk for future TIA events, transient ischemic stroke)
Symptoms often seen when there is Cardiovascular Dementia:
- Memory is confused, there are losses of information, what the person recalls can be incorrect, altered, or distorted
- Poor sustained attention
- Continually distracted by the irrelevant (information that is not relevant or germane to the topic being discussed)
- Constant interference of processes of selective attention, taking in all the information from the environment, whether it is relevant or not leading to the continual interference of excess stimuli
- Tendency to shift from one task to another without completing any tasks, or unable to complete a given task within a specified period of time
- The tendency to interrupt others and blurt out statements or comments
- Getting stuck on one issue or thing, perseveration
- Confusion in learning new information
- Difficulty with any step by step, sequential instruction such as how to work a piece of machinery or small appliance
- Problems planning, organizing or making decisions
- Paper piles become larger and more disorganized
- The day passes without being able to decide upon the task to complete
- Daily routines are easily disrupted and lost
- Emotional reactivity, becoming impulsive, overly judgmental and critical of others
- Social withdrawal, signs of depression
- Social mistakes, saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time
- Inappropriate sexual behavior or comments
- Problems communicating thoughts due to lost words
- Statements may not make sense or relate to the conversation
- Behavior from the past emerges, extreme anger not seen for many, many years reappears
- There can be a loss of inhibition, they feel it, they do it
- Loss of a sense of self, connection to the past, values, morals and beliefs
- Loss of future plans based upon value and belief system
- Not aware of time, poor time management, sense of time
- Difficulty anticipating consequences of one’s actions, the wrong place at the wrong time
It is critical to have a well trained, up to date, cutting-edge cardiologist.
At United Psychological Services, we offer a cognitive/brain training program for cardiovascular dementia that is revealing excellent results over time and differences on pre and post-evaluation of memory functioning.
