Abstract
Objective: To analyze the characteristics of Vascular Dementia (VD) and Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Bibliographic review: Dementia encompasses several diseases that affect memory, cognitive and behavioral skills that interfere with a person's ability to maintain activities of daily living. VD is a neurocognitive disorder characterized by cerebral infarctions, white matter lesions, loss of myelin, and often amyloid angiopathy. Thus, vascular damage is a critical cause of neuronal loss and synaptic disintegration. AD is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by extracellular plaques containing β-amyloid (Aβ) and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles containing tau. AD often presents with prominent amnestic cognitive impairment. Final considerations: Dementia is characterized by a progressive decline in cognitive capacity, leading to impaired autonomy of function, with more than 50 million people worldwide suffering from this problem, which tends to triple by 2050. Alzheimer's disease is the main cause of dementia, followed by vascular dementia. In this context, multidisciplinary care for patients with dementia is essential in order to improve their quality of life.
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