Alzheimer's Disease and Vascular Dementia: Neuropsychological Differentiation in Clinical Practice

Even when well-defined patient groups are studied, neuropsychological differentiation between Alzheimer's disease (dementia of the Alzheimer's type [DAT]) and vascular dementia (VaD) is far from clear. How useful are the results of these investigations when a differential diagnosis has to be established with non–pre-selected individual patients? In the present research we worked with a group of patients pre-diagnosed as having either DAT or VaD. Within the learning abilities, we focused on the status of the encoding system in each condition. Neuropsychological data were compared with PET data. We concluded that within certain limits a few neuropsychological data can contribute substantially to such differentiation, as long as they are contrasted with the rest of the relevant information available.