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What are Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease?
What are the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease?
How are Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease diagnosed?
How are Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease treated?
What are Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease?
Parkinson’s disease is a common degenerative disease of the brain. It involves the accumulation of an abnormal protein in brain cells. These deposits are called “Lewy bodies.” Most people with Parkinson’s disease have only physical symptoms, such as tremor (shaking), stiffness, slow walking, and difficulty with balance. However, older Parkinson patients may eventually develop cognitive impairment significant enough to qualify as dementia. It is referred to as Parkinson’s disease dementia.
There is another, less common, but related condition in which the physical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease begin more or less at the same time as the cognitive symptoms. In this condition, there is a tendency for the confusion to wax and wane (“good days and bad days”) and for the person to experience visual hallucinations. These people have Lewy bodies throughout their brains, and the condition that results is called Lewy body disease.
What are the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease?
Parkinson’s disease dementia
- slow thinking
- memory loss (usually less severe than in Alzheimer’s disease)
- difficulty performing familiar tasks (driving, handling finances, etc.)
- difficulty with learning and abstract thinking
- poor judgment
- loss of initiative
- changes in personality
- changes in mood and behavior
- physical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
Lewy body disease
- slow thinking
- memory loss
- difficulty with learning and abstract thinking
- fluctuating course
- visual hallucinations
- sensitivity to some medications
- physical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
How are Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease diagnosed?
Doctors usually recognize these conditions by the combination of physical signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and the mental changes described above.
How are Parkinson’s disease dementia and Lewy body disease treated?
The cognitive symptoms of these conditions often respond to cholinesterase inhibitors (for example, donepezil (Aricept®), galantamine (Razadyne®), rivastigmine (Exelon®).
