Symptoms

Vascular dementia symptoms vary, depending on the part of your brain where blood flow is impaired. Symptoms often overlap with those of other types of dementia, especially Alzheimer's disease dementia. But unlike Alzheimer's disease, the most significant symptoms of vascular dementia tend to involve speed of thinking and problem-solving rather than memory loss.

Vascular dementia signs and symptoms include:

• Confusion
• Trouble paying attention and concentrating
• Reduced ability to organize thoughts or actions
• Decline in ability to analyze a situation, develop an effective plan and communicate that plan to others
• Slowed thinking
• Difficulty with organization
• Difficulty deciding what to do next
• Problems with memory
• Restlessness and agitation
• Unsteady gait
• Sudden or frequent urge to urinate or inability to control passing urine
• Depression or apathy

Vascular dementia symptoms may be most clear-cut when they occur suddenly following a stroke. When changes in your thinking and reasoning seem clearly linked to a stroke, this condition is sometimes called post-stroke dementia.

Sometimes a characteristic pattern of vascular dementia symptoms follows a series of strokes or ministrokes. Changes in your thought processes occur in noticeable steps downward from your previous level of function, unlike the gradual, steady decline that typically occurs in Alzheimer's disease dementia.

But vascular dementia can also develop very gradually, just like Alzheimer's disease dementia. What's more, vascular disease and Alzheimer's disease often occur together.

Studies show that many people with dementia and evidence of brain vascular disease also have Alzheimer's disease.