The ICD-10 criteria for vascular dementia.

The World Health Organization recently introduced the new ICD-10. Chapter V ('Mental and behavioural disorders including disorders of psychological development') contains operationalized diagnostic guidelines for the classification of psychiatric disorders, i.e. the term vascular dementia is clearly defined. Furthermore, the criteria of the ICD-10 allow a differentiation of vascular dementia into subtypes (vascular dementia of acute onset, multi-infarct dementia, subcortical vascular dementia, and mixed or unspecified types). The clinical feasibility of the ICD-10 criteria for subtypes of vascular dementia is proven in an investigation of 72 demented patients (75.0 +/- 8.3 years) showing vascular lesions of the computed tomography scan. Only 18 cases (25.0%) fulfill the ICD-10 criteria for vascular dementia. 61.1% of the cases could be sufficiently classified into subtypes. These results suggest that the ICD-10 criteria for vascular dementia are rather selective.