Tomographic Measurements of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow by SPECT in Vascular Dementia

Abstract

During the past decade, increasing awareness of the importance and high frequency of degenerative dementia disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease has accentuated the need for an accurate clinical distinction of degenerative and vascular dementia. Vascular dementia (VD) is here defined as dementia caused by focal, multifocal, or diffuse brain lesions due to chronic cerebrovascular disease (CVD). Over the years many names have been used to identify dementia disorders which are thought to be caused by CVD: multi-infarct dementia, arteriosclerotic dementia, lacunar dementia, and Binswanger’s subacute arteriosclerotic encephalopathy (BSAE) [8]. These terms relate to certain structural abnormalities in the brain, all of which are included in the term chronic cerebrovascular disease, but do not always cause dementia.