Symptoms of Dementia with Lewy Bodies

In DLB, one sees symptoms and signs of both dementia and Parkinson’s disease. These may fluctuate in severity over days or over minutes.

The Cognitive Symptoms of DLB
In DLB, attention and sense of direction are particularly affected. Memory is often relatively well preserved.

Parkinson's Symptoms
Symptoms such as those seen in Parkinson’s Disease may be observed early in DLB. Muscle stiffness and slowness of movement are often seen. Tremor of the hands is less common.

Psychiatric Symptoms
The patient often has very vivid visual hallucinations. They often see people and/or animals. The hallucinations feel real. The hallucinations can be frightening at times. Hallucinations may also be auditory.

Sensitivity to Medication for Psychosis
Patients with DLB are often very sensitive to antipsychotic medications. That is particularly true for older types of antipsychotics, but also newer, so-called ‘atypical’ anti-psychotics.. The sensitivity manifests itself in a number of side-effects that may occur at low doses, so these medications must be used with care.