Trial Helps to Differentiate Between Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson, and Alzheimer Disease

Researchers from the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center have developed a clinical profile to assist in the differentiation of patients with Lewy body dementia (LBD), Alzheimer disease (AD), and Parkinson disease (PD).

The profile was created following a trial of 21 patients with LBD, 21 patients with AD, and 21 patients with PD, matched by age, gender, education, race, degree of cognitive impairment, and degree of motor impairment, and compared using cognitive, functional, and behavioral measures.
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The researchers found that those with LBD performed worse than PD in measures of axial motor, gait, and balance impairment. Those with AD had more amnesia and orientation impairments, but less executive and visuospatial deficits than those with LBD. Patients with LBD also had more sleepiness, cognitive fluctuations, hallucinations, and sleep apnea than those with AD or PD.

Overall, “LBD is differentiated from AD and PD by retrieval memory, visuospatial, and executive deficits; axial motor, gait and balance impairments; sleepiness, cognitive/behavioral fluctuations, hallucinations, and sleep apnea,” the researchers concluded, noting that correct, early diagnosis of the patient is vital because of differences in treatment and prognosis between the conditions.

—Michael Potts

Reference:
Scharre DW, Chang SI, Nagaraja HN, et al. Paired studies comparing clinical profiles of Lewy body dementia with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases [published online September 2016]. J Alzheimers Dis. 2016;54(3):995-1004.