Course

The course varies according to the cause of the vascular dementia. Some people with vascular dementia do not experience a deterioration of their condition. If the damage is due to a lack of oxygen during cardiac arrest or brain haemorrhaging, for example, the person may not develop any further symptoms. However, if the damage is due to a disease in the small capillaries deep in the brain caused by elevated blood pressure, for example, there is a tendency for the symptoms to worsen.

A number of dementia patients have a combination of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. This is called mixed dementia.

Even though there may not necessarily be a deterioration of the disease during vascular dementia, the prognosis is relatively poor. One of the reasons for this is people with vascular dementia are at high risk for developing new vascular changes in the heart or brain. That is particularly true if the person has elevated blood pressure and other risk factors like diabetes, high cholesterol levels and/or smoking.