Documentation of vascular risk factors in vascular dementia

The diagnosis of vascular dementia may often be made on the basis of structural neuroimaging, this may not always be reliable. In view of this, a retrospective study of 30 case notes with diagnosis of vascular dementia was undertaken to examine the documentation of vascular risk factors and presence of cerebrovascular disease. Specific recommendations were then made for the future case note documentation. Nine months later, 10 case notes were examined to assess the impact of the recommendations. A noticeable improvement in the documentation of most risk factors was observed. The wider implications of these findings are discussed.