Cognitive deficits of mild dementia: A comparison between dementia of the Alzheimer's type and vascular dementia.

This study was designed to examine the profiles of cognitive deficits in 11 mildly demented patients with dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT), five with vascular dementia with multiple subcortical lacunar infarcts (VDS), and seven with vascular dementia with extensive white matter lesions (VDW) in comparison with 23 aged individuals without dementia. Memory, attention, abstract thinking, and visuospatial function were assessed using the Japanese translation of the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R) and the Japanese version of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). Compared with normal aged individuals, three dementia groups were significantly impaired in the memory and abstract thinking. However, the performances on several tests on attention (i.e. Mental Control and Visual Memory Span Backward from WMS-R) and visuospatial function (i.e. Object Assembly from WAIS-R) differed significantly between the DAT and VDS groups, with VDS being the worst in terms of performance than was DAT. This study suggests that, in the mildly demented stage, the patients with DAT have few problems in the attention and visuospatial function, but those with VDS have impairments in these cognitive abilities.