Journal of the neurological sciences
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Acetazolamide vasoreactive test measures the increment of cerebral blood flow caused by compensatory vasodilatation ability of cerebral vessels which can be detected by transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD). This study aimed to compare the vascular reactivity in patients with vascular dementia (VaD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). ⋯ Acetazolamide vasoreactive test using TCD may be the additional criterion to differentiate VaD from AD. Further study with more number of subjects for the study or higher dose of acetazolamide may be needed to reveal the significant difference of vasoreactive response between VaD and AD patients.
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Non-linguistic cognitive impairments may limit rehabilitation efficacy in patients with aphasia. The aim of this study was to determine whether post-stroke aphasia was associated with impairments of visuo-spatial working memory and abstract thinking and whether these deficits adversely affected language recovery. ⋯ Even though the patients' non-linguistic cognitive abilities were impaired in general, the patients were heterogeneous with regard to their deficits. Linguistic and non-linguistic deficits appeared to be distinct, although they could be concurrent. Visuo-spatial working memory was associated with the degree of improvement in two functions crucial to language communication: naming and comprehension. No relationship was found between language therapy outcome and abstract thinking ability.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
New approach to the rehabilitation of post-stroke focal cognitive syndrome: effect of levodopa combined with speech and language therapy on functional recovery from aphasia.
Few studies confirm that pharmacological treatments support post-stroke recovery. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the combination of levodopa with language therapy improves aphasia rehabilitation. ⋯ Supplementing language therapy with levodopa may improve recovery from aphasia in patients with frontal lesions.
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Migraine is an independent risk factor for ischemic stroke, mainly in the subpopulation of women with migraine with aura who are younger than 45 years, particularly those that use estrogen containing oral contraceptives. Migraine however should be considered a benign condition as the absolute increase of stroke risk is small. Migraine is also associated with a high prevalence of cerebral white matter hyperintensities, occurring in the deep and periventricular white matter as well as infratentorial, mainly pontine. ⋯ A population-based twin study showed that a lifetime migraine diagnosis was not associated with cognitive deficits in middle-aged subjects. A long-term prospective study, assessing cognitive and memory changes in ageing individuals with and without a history of migraine, showed that migraineurs do not exhibit more decline on cognitive tests over time versus controls. Migraine is certainly not a recognized risk factor for (vascular) dementia.
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Prospective memory (ProM) involves remembering to perform actions after a delay, such as buying groceries on the way home from work. Retrospective memory (RetM) involves remembering events from the past. It is known that the memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease (AD) generalizes across (a) these two types of memory, and (b) encoding, storage, and retrieval within RetM. ⋯ From a population-based study, 21 persons with VaD, 79 with AD, and 352 controls were included. Both dementia groups were impaired on all ProM and RetM variables, but did not differ from one another on any measure. The results are discussed relative to a network view of episodic memory, in which alterations at different sites may result in similar functional impairments.