Da. Snowdon et Wr. Markesbery, The prevalence of neuropathologycally confirmed vascular dementia: findings from the Nun Study, 1ST INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON VASCULAR DEMENTIA, 1999, pp. 19-24
The Nun Study is a longitudinal study of aging and Alzheimer's disease in 6
78 Catholic sisters who agreed to annual examinations and brain donation at
death. By the end of 1997, 262 participants had died and brains were colle
cted and neuropathologic examinations completed on 241 (92 %). These 241 wo
men were 76 to 103 years of age at death (mean=89). Prior to death, 118 (49
%) of the 241 women fulfilled our clinical criteria for dementia and only
3 of them had neuropathologic confirmation of vascular dementia. That is, t
he 3 cases had vascular pathology that was judged by a neuropathologist to
be sufficient to produce dementia and they had no other significant patholo
gy that could have produced the dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease. Over
all, vascular dementia appears to be an uncommon cause of dementia in this
population.