My father has dementia with lewy bodies. what does this mean?

Progressive illness: Lewy body dementia, is like alzheimer's disease, a progressive disorder of the central nervous system. Unfortunately, there are no curative treatments. Some treatment may slow the progress of disease. It is sad to see one's parent with a debilitating illness. You may wish to consult a neurologist to get the latest treatments.

Three things: It has to include dementia (flucucation in attention and awareness as well as alertness), parkinsonism (not a classical parkinson's) including but not necessarily all of threm - tremors, masking, blinking and shuffling gait, and visual hallucinations. There is abnormal microscopic protein builds up in the brain that disrupts functional brain cells causing them to slowly deterioration of activity.

LEWY BODIES DEM.: Dementia with lewy bodies (dlb) is characterized by cognitive decline with a combination of fluctuating cognition, recurrent visual hallucinations, spontaneous extrapyramidal signs, rapid eye movement (rem) sleep behavioral disorder, and antipsychotic sensitivity. People with dlb exhibit a prominent dysexecutive syndrome and visuoperceptive disturbances. Detectable memory loss may not occur early.

Brief Details.......: Neurodegenerative d/o featuring milder physical parkinsonism than parkinson's disease typically. (slowed movements, stiff/rigid muscles & posture, possibly resting tremor). But with early dementia, often with associated psychosis (visual hallucinations, delusional thoughts), excessive sleepiness, depression/anxiety/apathy, & rbd. Rbd = rem behavior d/o, causing acting-out of dreams in rem sleep.

BUT, Rx available!!!: Dopamine meds for physical parkinsonism: Azilect (mao-b selective inhibitor) & sinemet +/- Comtan (stalevo (carbidopa and levodopa and entacapone) is both together). Tailor rx watching for side effects. Avoid Dopamine agonists (requip xl/mirapex er/neupro)--too side effect prone for lewy body patients. For dementia: namenda, paired with Exelon patch or aricept. For psychosis: seroquel or even clozaril. For excess sleepiness: nuvigil.

Less well known: Lewy body dementia often starts with visual hallucinations and as it progresses a person develops some of movement problems seen in parkinsons disease. Memory retrieval is slowed. There is a waxing and waning of symptoms throughout the day. A person can have lbd and alzheimers at the same time.