Vascular dementia: clinical and neuroradiological correlation

All stroke patients admitted to Banjaluka Clinical Centre during one year were evaluated by the standard protocol during the hospitalization and three months after the stroke. It included clinical, functional and neuropsychological examination and neuroimaging. Dementia was diagnosed according to the criteria of National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke-Association Internationale pour la Recherche et l'Enseignement en Neurosciences. Demographic and clinical variables were examined. After the exclusion of the patients who died (n = 139) and those who refused to be interviewed during the 3-month follow up (n = 52) and those with pre-stroke dementia (n = 22), a total of 273 (58.8%) patients underwent neuropsychological examination 3 months after the stroke. Forty-nine (19.52%) of them met the criteria for vascular dementia. The predictors of vascular dementia were age, atrial fibrillation, cognitive and functional impairment on admission and functional outcome, subcortical lacunar infarctions, leukoaraiosis, multiple and bilateral brain lesions. Dementia is frequent after stroke and it cannot be determined by a single factor. A combination of several factors increases the critical threshold for cognitive decline.