ok I finally got up the nerve to look at the death certificate it says, Severe Vascular Dementia--- 3 years and Arteriosclerotic Vascular Disease---15 yrs, I looked it up and what I get is SVD is not the same as ad and does the other have to do with high blood preasure, wondering cause son is worried he will get ad in the future. Gail
No, vascular dementia is different from AD. It can progress like AD as small strokes worsen it. My sister-in-law's mother died of vascular dementia and it was due to many TIAs occurring over a period of time. By the end (over a 10 year period) she was unable to take care of herself, didn't know who anyone was, had in the past been quite agitated, etc. She was in a ALF and NH near the end. A lot of the same things that a person with AD goes through.
Usually vascular dementia starts with an event. A stroke, a bunch of heart stoppings (my husband's situation), a very long operation (my husband has that event as well). It is possible that what they see when they do a MRI or a CAT Scan is slightly different for vascular dementia as well.
As far as I can tell from my husband's situation, it progresses almost identically to Alzheimer's as far as the stages go. He certainly finished up stage 4 before he started on stage 5, which he finished up before he began stage 6. The order of the symptoms WITHIN a stage seem to be variable no matter if it is AD Or VD.
You can't inherit vascular dementia, but you can inherit the tendency towards heart conditions or strokes. But you also can do something about that by taking care of yourself.
Frances's death certificate lists her cause of death as: respiratory arrest due to cardiac arrest due to Alzheimer's disease
The condensed results of Frances's brain autopsy performed by Mayo Clinic states: "The following diagnoses were found: (1) Alzheimer's disease, advanced pathologic stage, posterior cortical type (Braak Stage VI), (2) amygdala predominant lewy bodies. The pathology is that of Alzheimer's disease (AD), with the brunt of the pathology in posterior cortical areas, particularly in the visual association cortices. These findings fit well with the clinical presentation of this patient, who had the so-called "visual variant" of AD, which included simultanagnosia and considerable visuospatial difficulties. A subset of visual variant have hippocampal sparing AD, but in this patient hippocampal pathology was severe."
My hb, age 72, had a stroke when he was 48. TIAs since then, silent strokes. MRI shows "black spots" where damage has been done, says neurologist. Vascular dementia is the "diagnosis." The disease, as has been mentioned, isn't inherited BUT the tendency for high blood pressure and high cholesterol can be. These can be controlled by diet and meds, usually--especially if one starts young. One of our son's has high cholesterol (as does my hb's sister). Theirs is not so much affected by diet--body just manufactures too much. The "journey" is much the same as those with alz: through the stages to demise. Of course, another disease can interrupt the journey and hasten the end. The bp & cholesterol problems "run" in hb's family--especially males; and he's lived more years than any of his uncles. As a caregiver, I've observed behaviors described by spouses of those w/alz in my hb.
so when we had him diganosed in AZ. they say ALZ. bring him home they still say the same thing, now it happens to be AVD that took his life, I was never told about any strokes but I remember him having a headache that lasted for a week , this was about 5 yrs ago and he had a MRI and they said they could find nothing, he also had one done 3 months ago and said they saw nothing, i know it will not change the fact he is gone but for my sons peace of mind I said I would look into it, i figured I would get good answers from here, got no where from the Doc. I know he had high blood pressure for a long time. Gail