[Diagnosis and treatment of Lewy body dementia]

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) has recently gained recognition as a separate disease. Lewy bodies are pathoanatomical inclusion bodies in the CNS. They are well known as part of Parkinson's disease where they are present mainly in the substantia nigra, and they are also found in large numbers in the neocortex. It is still an unanswered question why Lewy bodies are formed, but their appearance is connected with cellular degeneration of unknown aetiology. Neuropathological investigations of dementia populations show that DLB accounts for 12-36%, which places it as the second most frequent dementia disease after Alzheimer's disease (AD) with a frequency close to that of vascular dementia. This article reviews the development of the term DLB and describes the clinical characteristics, including the neuropsychological symptom profile, which can contribute to the diagnostic discrimination between DLB and AD. Furthermore, relevant treatment possibilities are discussed.