Under NINDS-AIREN criteria for vascular dementia, how many cognitive domains must be impaired?

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Vascular dementia per the NINDS-AIREN criteria is defined by cognitive impairment that involves multiple cognitive domains, reflecting the widespread impact of cerebrovascular disease on brain networks. The requirement is impairment in three cognitive domains, such as memory, executive function, language, visuospatial skills, or attention, indicating a more diffuse social-subcortical disruption rather than a single-domain deficit. This broader pattern helps distinguish vascular dementia from other causes of cognitive change and aligns with how cerebrovascular injuries tend to affect several neural systems. In addition, there must be evidence of cerebrovascular disease and a temporal relationship between the vascular events and the cognitive decline. So, three impaired domains is the threshold used.