Cognitive Estimation in Patients with Early Subcortical Vascular Dementia

Dementia due to cerebrovascular pathology represents are considered to contribute to cognitive estimation the second most frequent group of dementias besides Alzheimer’s dementia. In order to attain diagnostic clarification, several subtypes of vascular dementia have been proposed. Among these subtypes, subcortical vascular dementia (SVD) comprises small vessel disease with possible lacunar infarcts and white matter lesions centred around subcortical structures (Erkinjuntti et al., 2000). Various cognitive functions are affected in SVD. Executive functioning is most prominently impaired followed by rather mild anterograde memory dysfunctions (Libon et al., 2004; Rosler et al., 2005). Since cognitive deficits represent an important diagnostic criterion and furthermore are one of the main reasons for disabilities in everyday life in SVD patients, there is a profound research interest in a more detailed operational description of the cognitive profile associated with SVD. Cognitive estimation is a complex, highly relevant function in daily living. Whenever a solution to a problem is not directly available, an answer has to be generated under uncertainty. The complexity of considering all relevant information and of evaluating the plausibility of possible estimates is bound to the discussion of multiple involved subfunctions and critical anatomical regions. Frontal and parietal cortical areas as well as subcortical feedback loops