STROKES LINKED TO DEMENTIA IN ELDERLY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 28, 1993                   TAG: 9301280015
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
STROKES LINKED TO DEMENTIA IN ELDERLY
Alzheimer's disease has been considered the leading cause of dementia among the elderly, but a new study reports that strokes may play just as big a role in mental impairment.
The finding suggests that some dementia may be averted with better prevention and treatment of stroke, whereas there is currently no such hope with impairment resulting from Alzheimer's, Swedish researchers write in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
Out of 494 people in the study who were 85 years old, 147 of them, or nearly 30 percent, suffered varying degrees of dementia. Of those 147, there were 43.5 percent diagnosed with Alzheimer's; 46.9 percent with so-called vascular dementia, related to stroke; and 9.5 percent with dementia resulting from other causes.
Some earlier studies suggested that 50 to 70 percent of people with dementia had Alzheimer's, but other researchers have reported findings similar to this latest study, with stroke and Alzheimer's about equal in their contribution to mental impairment.
Such varying results may be a result of the difficulty of diagnosing dementia and its causes, or of differences in study populations, the authors of the report wrote.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB