What Is Lewy Body Dementia?
After Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, lewy body dementia is a common form of dementia damaging the brain cells. Some uncommon microscopic protein particles are found affecting the brain of lewy body dementia victims. These particles are known as lewy bodies. It is very common to the Parkinson’s disease despite the fact that more symptoms evolve in lewy body dementia. The disorder is not rare especially in older people. In fact, lewy bodies are found in Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases as well.
What Are The Symptoms Of Lewy Body Dementia?
The symptoms of lewy body disease are quite obvious and easy to recognize. However, consulting a doctor is necessary since the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are similar:
- Visual hallucinations; Victims having conversations with people who passed away years ago, for example.
- Depression.
- Difficulty in attention and concentration.
- Uncommon movement problems.
- Memory loss and short attention span.
- Nervous system malfunctioning.
Lewy body dementia patients tend to suffer from a combination of these symptoms. Since many of these symptoms evolve in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease too, it is important to get a medical consultation before beginning any treatment.
What Causes Lewy Body Dementia?
There are no authentic theories or research results that could prove how the disorder develops
However, the only two things that are medically confirmed include:
- The presence of lewy bodies, microscopic protein deposits affecting the brain.
- Availability of plaques and tangles that are found in Alzheimer’s disease.
Family history and genetic issues are usually not the reasons that cause lewy body dementia.
What Are The Risk Factors Of Lewy Body Dementia?
People with the following characteristics tend to suffer from lewy body dementia more than others:
- Age of 60 or above.
- Male.
- Family member suffering from the disorder.
Lewy body dementia could be fatal at times too. If the lewy bodies increase too much in number and spread, it could lead to a severe type of dementia leading to an eventual death.
How Is Lewy Body Dementia Diagnosed?
Medical studies suggest that a single test could not accurately diagnose lewy body dementia. At first, doctors observe the symptoms like hallucinating vision, declining attention span, REM sleep disorder and autonomic dysfunction. However, the following supporting tests may be carried out for better diagnosis:
- Physical and neurological examinations.
- Brain scanning.
- Blood tests.
- Electroencephalogram or EEG.
- Observations of mental abilities.
How Is Lewy Body Dementia Treated?
According to medical studies, there is no way of completely eradicating the disorder. Therefore, doctors tend to treat individual symptoms that evolve in order to reduce the severity of the disorder:
- Antipsychotic medicines.
- Cholinesterase inhibitors.
- Other medications to treat other symptoms.
Certain therapies of changing environment, response modifications and daily routine modification are also carried out in order to prevent the complications. There is no way of preventing the disorder itself because nobody yet knows how lewy bodies are developed. However, it is better to cure individual symptoms during early stages so that the disorder does not turns into a severe dementia.
By : Natural Health News
