Neuropsychological Assessment

Abstract

See related article, pages 2969–2972. Research on vascular factors in dementia and vascular cognitive impairment has gone through some major developments the past decades. Until 1993, the term multi-infarct dementia was used to distinguish dementia caused by one or more infarctions from Alzheimer disease.1 Research on cognitive functioning aimed at obvious cognitive impairment after a stroke, that was generally quantified with dementia screening methods. In 1993, the first set of diagnostic criteria of vascular dementia was introduced, which led to an expansion in the number of publications on the subject.2 In these criteria, several vascular mechanisms, pathology, and circumscript lesions or localizations were defined that may lead to vascular dementia. As the field evolved, new insights arose, accompanied with the acknowledgment that not all cognitive decline fulfilled the criteria of dementia. The concept of vascular cognitive impairment was formulated as an umbrella term that encompasses all cognitive deficits associated with vascular factors or mechanisms.3 Meanwhile, several attempts have been made to further differentiate specific patterns of cognitive impairment related to distinct vascular pathology. Efforts have been made with regard to poststroke dementia4,5 and subcortical vascular ischemic dementia.6 Still, the number of publications on cognitive deficits related to vascular factors is growing, and presently several studies aim to objectify even more subtle cognitive changes. In this issue of Stroke , …