White matter lesions and temporal atrophy are associated with cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with hypertension and alzheimer´s disease.

OBJECTIVES: An increasing evidence suggests hypertension (HTN) could be linked to cognitive impairment and incident Alzheimer disease (AD). The precise mechanisms linking HTN and AD are not well known. The aim of this study was to assess the putative association between HTN and AD.

METHODS: We assessed in patients with AD associations between HTN and demographic and clinical data, vascular risk factors, treatments, APOE genotypes, brain white matter hyperintensities (WMH), and medial temporal atrophy (MTA) in multivariate analysis of covariance.

RESULTS: We studied 92 patients with AD (mean ± standard deviation age: 72.12±6.91; women: 66.30%). Patients with HTN had significantly worse cognitive and functional status and higher frequency and severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms (P=.010). MRI analyses showed significant increases in WMH (P=.018) and in MTA (P=.012) in patients with AD with HTN compared with those without HTN.

CONCLUSIONS: Neuroimaging burden (MTA and higher degree of severity of WMH) among patients with AD and HTN are associated with the impaired cognitive function and neuropsychiatric symtoms. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.