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Social Worker Darby Morhardt describes vascular dementia.
Darby Morhardt:
Vascular dementia is a dementia where persons who have vascular disease can be predisposed to it. High blood pressure that’s not monitored appropriately, heart disease, perhaps diabetes, issues that when they’re not well controlled that can lead to little, tiny strokes that occur in the brain.
And it can happen to women and to men alike. It is a matter of, it is probably the one form of dementia that’s the most possibly preventable because that has so much to do with lifestyle. And also if you have vascular disease in your family, it’s so important that you do what you can to keep that vascular disease at bay and take good care of yourself. Take special care to monitor your blood pressure and your heart and to exercise and eat right.
So that’s vascular disease, and when those little strokes happen, though, they are very hard to stop, and so it can be, it is as progressive as Alzheimer’s disease is, and, unfortunately, people do die eventually from that vascular dementia as well.
About Darby Morhardt, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.:
Darby Morhardt is a research associate professor, the Director of Education, and a clinical research social worker at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Her research interests include early stage and Younger Onset dementia programs and services, the dynamics and functioning of caregiving families, the subjective experience of Alzheimer's disease, and primary care physician education.
Visit Darby Morhardt at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine