Factores de naturaleza vascular y marcadores de inflamación como predictores de progresión a demencia en pacientes con deterioro cognitivo leve

Zusammenfassung

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an intermediate state between normal cognitive function of aging and dementia. The clinical relevance of this syndrome rests in their ability to predict subsequent development of dementia. It is crucial to have tools that can predict this progression to develop strategies for prevention and early treatment. While it seems clear that the traditional cardiovascular risk factors associated with the onset and progression of the two main forms of dementia and increase the risk of developing a DCL there is little knowledge of their influence on the progression of it and almost nothing is known about the influence of other emerging factors of vascular nature about the onset and progression of MCI. The aim of this thesis is to determine the rate of conversion to dementia in a sample of subjects with MCI for three years of monitoring. Also analyze the influence of various risk factors involved in this process, among which we highlight: subclinical carotid atherosclerosis, homocysteine, nature vascular lesions and certain inflammatory markers. The thesis is structured in six sections: 1) Introduction; 2) objectives for this study; 3) description of the methodology; 4) Presentation of the results obtained; 5) Discussion of the data within the scientific environment; limitations, and 6) Conclusions.