Role of Inflammation in Lewy Body Dementia

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is an umbrella term used to group together the two closely related conditions of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD). Cortical neuronal Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites are found in both conditions at autopsy. As well as dementia, DLB and PDD also share common clinical features including fluctuations in attention, visual hallucinations and parkinsonism (1,2). If parkinsonism is present one year before the onset of dementia, patients are diagnosed with PDD, if it is less than one year, or it is not present, the diagnosis is DLB.