Can vascular dementia be diagnosed in patients with aphasia due to a left hemisphere infarct?
Patients should not be tested for dementia in the acute phase of stroke, whether aphasic or otherwise.
Although most tests for cognitive functioning rely heavily on language abilities, tests of nonverbal memory and reasoning help to support the diagnosis of dementia in an aphasic patient.
A history of functional decline not related to language-based tasks is also helpful.
