Correlative factors of behavioral and psychological symptoms in patients with vascular dementia

Objective To analyze the behavioral and psychological symptoms in patients with vascular dementia (VaD),investigate the relationship between behavioral and psychological symptoms and such correlative factors as cognitive disturbance,age,education level of the patients,and explore the internal relations among Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) items. Methods NPI and Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were introduced to assess the behavioral and psychological symptoms in 120patients with VaD and 61 healthy elders (control group). Results The VaD patient group had significantly higher scores in 8 items,including delusion,hallucination,agitation,dysphoria,apathy,irritability,aberrant motor and appetite/eating changes in the NPI list,as compared with the control group (P＜0.05),with the points ranked from the highest by dysphoria,apathy and irritability.Among the 8 items in the NPI list, delusion, apathy and aberrant motor were significantly correlated with cognitive disturbance; and aberrant motor was correlated with age and education level.Besides that,NPI factor analysis showed that 3 behavioral sub-syndromes,psychosis,mood disorder and behavioral disturbance,exited. Conclusion Behavioral and psychological symptoms were common in VaD patients,and the frequency and severity of appearing of behavioral and psychological symptoms were correlated with cognitive disturbance,age,and education level of different degrees; in addition,each sub-syndrome may have common pathophysiologic mechanism. Key words: Vascular dementia;  Behavioral and psychological symptom;  Factor analysis