Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Dementia

The purpose is to is to study if repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) improves cognitive function in patients with neurodegenerative conditions which may manifest as mild to moderate cognitive impairment and, in late phase, dementia. This study also intends to investigate if the responses to rTMS intervention are either positively or negatively correlated with the initial severity of cognitive impairment.

The primary hypothesis is that rTMS applied to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex will lead to improved memory, language and executive function compared to patients who receive a sham, control treatment. The improvement is defined as having higher performance on the California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT-II). Secondary Hypotheses are that: * 1: rTMS- will lead to higher performance on secondary cognitive measures relating to executive function and naming compared to performance by participants in the sham treatment group at the termination of treatment; and that * 2: rTMS-induced memory improvement parallels changes in serum and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels after treatment.