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(Stroke. 2003;34:2445.)
© 2003 American Heart Association, Inc.

Original Contributions

Editorial Comment—Elderly Stroke Patient at Risk for Dementia: In Search of a Profile

Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics, Perugia University, School of Medicine, Perugia, Italy

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

Subjects 75 years of age are the fastest-growing segment of the population in Western countries. They currently represent 6.0% of the population in the United States and 6.6% in Europe and will become, by the year 2030, >9% and 12%, respectively.¹

This age group has the highest risk of cognitive impairment and dementia, and stroke is among the factors that account for this risk.² Previous studies have found that 30% of stroke survivors 75 years of age suffer from dementia, a percentage that is considerably higher than in younger stroke patients. In this issue of Stroke, Ballard et al³ present a longitudinal study of a small group of stroke patients 75 years of age who underwent a detailed neuropsychological evaluation 3 months after an ischemic stroke and again 1 year later to investigate delayed changes in cognitive functions after stroke and to verify whether commonly used criteria for early cognitive impairment, ie, mild cognitive impairment, aging-associated cognitive decline, and vascular cognitive impairment, no dementia (vascular CIND), were able to predict cognitive deterioration. The proportion of patients experiencing a decline in cognitive functions was 30%, with 9% developing dementia. However, cognitive improvement was observed in 50% of the patients, and 16% showed an increase of >2 points in the Mini Mental State Examination score. This study adds to the previous literature because it demonstrates that none of the proposed criteria for identifying subjects with cognitive impairment at high risk for dementia, including vascular CIND, can predict which stroke patients will . . . [Full Text of this Article]