In patients with cerebrovascular disease the identification of risk factors might be hypothesized as being associated with the beginning of the process leading, in some of cases, to dementia. The studies described in this paper were designed to verify this hypothesis. The first study showed that specific signs of memory and attention impairment can be identified when hypertensives are compared to normal subjects of the same age. The second study demonstrated that these cognitive deficits are not evenly distributed among hypertensives (about one half of the patients do not show signs of these deficits) and that when signs are present they are independent of interference from emotional problems.