Lewy body dementias include dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson’s disease with dementia (PDD) and are the second most frequent cause of dementia in elderly adults after Alzheimer’s disease.

Common symptoms include:

• • • problems with movement, visual hallucinations, fluctuations in thinking skills or attention, delusions, rigidity or stiffness, shuffling gait, slowness of movement, tremor, REM sleep behavior disorder: seem to act out dreams, repeated falls and syncope, transient and unexplained loss of consciousness, difficulties with depth perception, object orientation and directional sense, blood pressure fluctuations, heart rate variability, constipation, urinary problems, excessive sweating, decreased sweating/heat tolerance, dry eyes/mouth or swallowing problems
    • They are often misdiagnosed, most commonly as Alzheimer’s if the person presents with memory problems, or Parkinson’s if the person presents with movement problems.
    • Some people start out with movement problems (Parkinson’s) and later develop dementia (Parkinson’s dementia). Others start out with memory problems (Alzheimer’s) and over time develop features leading to the Lewy Body diagnosis. A small amount of people start with neuropsychiatric issues (hallucinations, behavioral problems, difficulty with complex mental tasks) leading to an original diagnosis of Lewy Body dementia.

NOTE: Severe sensitivity to typical antipsychotic medications, sometimes prescribed for behaviors associated with dementia. They can cause increased problems with movement, confusion, and a syndrome causing fever, muscle rigidity and kidney failure.