​Symptoms and Signs – Differential Diagnosis of Dementia with Lewy Bodies

​Symptoms and Signs – Differential Diagnosis of Dementia with Lewy Bodies
• Alzheimer’s disease (AD): differs from DLB, in which visual hallucinations and parkinsonism are prominent.
• Atypical parkinsonian syndromes (multiple systems atrophy,progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration): these syndromes have other features, such as cerebellar degeneration, supranuclear gaze palsy, and asymmetric limb apraxia, that are not seen in DLB.
• Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD): differs from DLB in that it is usually more rapidly progressive, can have cerebellar signs and symptoms, and often has distinctive EEG abnormalities.
• Frontotemporal dementia (FTD, also known as Pick’s disease)
• Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD): differentiated from DLB, in which dementia usually precedes parkinsonism. A somewhat arbitrary “1-year” rule is sometimes used to differentiate DLB from PDD in that if dementia presents within the first year after the parkinsonism, DLB can still be diagnosed.
• Toxic-, metabolic-, or pharmacologic-related delirium
• Vascular dementia: differs from DLB in that despite the fluctuations in performance seen in DLB, there is no clear history of multiple strokes.