Vascular dementia is a less well-known cognitive disorder than Alzheimer’s diseasebut which represents between 15 and 30% of dementia cases. It is due to an anomaly of the blood circulation which causes a lack of oxygenation of certain areas of the brain. She often appears post stroke or a recurrence of small strokes that destroy small vessels, creating multiple lesions inside the brain.
Until now, the prevention of vascular dementia involved the prevention of the main risk factors: high blood pressurethe diabeteshyperlipidemia or obesity but there was no approved treatment to prevent this type of dementia.
But a team from the Belfast School of Medicine (Ireland) decided to launch the first large-scale study on the effects of antihypertensive treatment on this cognitive disorder. They will test whether amlodipine, a drug used to treat high blood pressure, can prevent disease progression and improve memory and cognition (previous smaller studies have already paved the way for this type of research) .
“We start from the idea that reducing blood pressure improves blood flow to the brain. And among all the hypertensive drugs, amlodipine is the only one that has an effect on calcium, which is known to destroy brain cells,” explains Professor Peter Passmore, who will lead this study.
Nearly 600 people have been recruited to take part in this study, half of whom will be prescribed a placebo drug. A brain scan will be performed at the start of the study, and another one a year later. Participants will also undergo memory tests. If successful, amlodipine could be prescribed as a treatment for vascular dementia within five to ten years.
