Methodological issues and therapeutic perspectives in vascular dementia: a review

Vascular dementia (VaD) is the most common form of dementia after Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, it is now increasingly recognized that not only is VaD a heterogeneous syndrome but also that VaD and AD are not mutually exclusive. Thus, the currently used criteria may no longer be sufficient for an accurate diagnosis of VaD. In addition, although it is widely assumed that risk factors for vascular disease are also risk factors for VaD, the evidence, in most cases, is circumstantial. For the effective prevention of VaD, therefore, large-scale and long-term clinical trials are required to investigate the validity of these putative risk factors. These trials should also include the VaD subtypes in their outcome measurements and to this end a simplified classification system should be adopted. Additional large-scale trials are required to facilitate the secondary prevention and symptomatic treatment of VaD, in particular to investigate the potential application of several nootropic and neuroprotective drugs. In both cases, these clinical trials should aim to move the field of VaD from opinion-based medicine to evidence-based medicine.