Treatment of dementia with lewy bodies.
Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a multisystem disorder with diverse disease expression. A treatment regime restricted to the cognitive aspects of the disease does no favor to patients. Instead, patients should be educated to recognize the symptoms of this multisystem involvement. There are no treatments that slow the progression of disease, but symptomatic treatments can be effective. When thinking about treatment, we find it useful to divide the symptoms and signs into five categories: (a) cognitive features, (b) neuropsychiatric features, (c) motor dysfunction, (d) autonomic dysfunction, and (e) sleep dysfunction. Clinicians, funding bodies and industry are increasingly recognizing the importance of this common and debilitating disease.
Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 221 Longwood Ave, Boston, MA, 02115, USA, bboot@partners.org.
Brendon P
BP
Boot
Eric M
EM
McDade
Scott M
SM
McGinnis
Bradley F
BF
Boeve