Absence of MRI exams in epidemiological studies can leads to clinical overdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and underdiagnosis of vascular dementia

Depression and the risk of vascular dementia: a population‐based retrospective cohort study

“…The prodromal phase of dementia could extend 10 or more years before clinical diagnosis, and our study period did not encompass this phase fully. Fourth, as VaD is consistently underdiagnosed (Caixeta et al, 2009;Korczyn, 2005), its incidence may have been underestimated in our study. In addition, as the difference in VaD incidence between cohorts was quite small, the statistical power was much smaller than we expected.…”

<p>Dementia Diagnoses and Treatment in Geriatric Ward Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study in Poland</p>

“…39 Moreover, the results of some studies have shown that the lack of neuroimaging assessment might lead to clinical overdiagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and the underdiagnoses of vascular pathology. 40 Every patient diagnosed with dementia had a CT scan, which may have also contributed to such results.…”