[Dementia with Lewy bodies--from its finding to the present, including the CDLB guideline-revised]

The history of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) was introduced. In 1976 we reported our first autopsied case with "diffuse Lewy body disease (DLBD)", the term of which we proposed in 1984. In addition, we reported, for the first time, the detailed characteristics and distribution pattern of cortical Lewy bodies, based on our own three autopsied DLBD cases, in 1978. We also reported two German autopsied cases with DLBD in 1979, which were the first DLBD cases reported in Europe. In 1980 we proposed the term "Lewy body disease" and classified it into three types: a brain stem type, a transitional type and a diffuse type. The brain stem type is equal to Parkinson disease (PD), and the diffuse type was later designated as DLBD. Furthermore, we reviewed all DLBD cases reported in Japan and classified DLBD into two forms: a common form with more or less Alzheimer pathology and a pure form without it. Since then we have reported many papers concerning DLBD. Based on our reports the term "dementia with Lewy bodies" was proposed at the first international workshop in 1995. The CDLB guidelines were published in 1996, and the CDLB guidelines--revised were also reported in 2005. In the revised guidelines the term "Lewy body disease" was used as the generic term including DLB, PD and PDD as we had insisted since 1980.