Hi June,  I seem to remember having read something somewhere about low blood
pressure being associated with strokes and TIA etc.   Don't recall the
source, unfortunately.

Hi June,   Our LO has vascular dementia, although our young physician used
to say she had AD. As time goes on he has come around to agreeing with us
about the diagnosis because of the peculiarities of her dementia and
remaining abilities are clearly different than someone who has progressive
AD.  Our LO had temporal arteritis about 14 years ago which went untreated
for a couple months. She almost certainly had some micro strokes at this
time. She was also hit by a car at age 70 and landed on her head. This
injury was never examined other than stitching up her head because the Drs
were focused on internal injuries plus we were not there to ask the
questions. We think this injury certainly factors into her present
condition. We didn't have any neurological testing done because she had
numerous other more pressing maladies to worry about and frankly we thought
she was going to croak any day.

She has been 100% dependent on our care for 10 years or longer and has lived
with us for 7 years. Now she is healthy as can be and might live to 100. She
has the function of an agreeable 4-5 yr old and absolutely zero short term
memory. However she remains a good speller (frontwards or backwards to the
amazement of our Dr) and is excellent at Wheel of Fortune. If you mention
that "her show is almost on" she won't know what you are talking about. If
you are out of the room when someone wins and you return 3 seconds later and
ask her which contestant won, she won't know. She doesn't usually know what
city or state we live in, who her Dr or anyone else besides family is, or
even how to get to the garage. However she is generally happy as a clam. We
are really glad she doesn't have progressive AD.

Most of her declining abilities at this point seem age related. She now is
almost 90 and sleeps a lot. She has recently lost interest in eating so she
is back on the Ensure and we just feed her bites all through meals. She
enjoys loading the dishwasher but can not unload it or you will find dishes
everywhere other than where they go. She can make a bed better than most
drill sargents. She tires very easily and has old compression fractures that
cause her a lot of pain if we don't stay on top of it. She can't use phone,
microwave, TV remote or anything else other than her electric toothbrush.
All in all, she's physically very healthy as long as she eats and drinks
enough water to keep the pipes clean and takes her regular meds. She has
normal BP, and always has.I've never heard of low BP as cause of vascular
dementia - just strokes and brain injuries. She is good natured about not
having any memory, although we did go through the compulsive note writing,
accusatory paranoia and denial stages about 15 years ago. I much prefer this
stage although it is really weird living with someone where you remember
more about their life than they do.    AW

June does your mother have Diabetes?  That was a strange thing that
happened to me....i got Alzhiemers and then Diabetes... and found that
the Dibetes medecine was protecting me from the alzhiemers....I'm
forgetfull but can live a fairly good life....