ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to several important clinical cardiovascular risk factors and diseases that are associated with lower levels of performance on neuropsychological tests, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia: (a) cardiac arrhythmias; (b) peripheral vascular disease (PVD); (c) carotid artery disease. Here, we review and discuss papers dealing with studies of these associations in patients and individuals recruited from the community. We discuss the methodological challenges associated with these studies and describe the theories and hypotheses with respect to mechanisms intervening between these types of cardiovascular diseases and cognitive functioning. One important question addressed is whether these forms of cardiovascular disease relate to general cognitive performance or relate to specific abilities or ability domains. Finally, we discuss the clinical and epidemiological significance of this literature. Clinical significance is defined as implications for the individual patient and epidemiological significance is defined as importance to large populations. Very small effects in terms of the individual patient may have much significance for the population as a whole.
