Progression of clinical features in Lewy body dementia can be detected over six months

Objective: This study aimed to quantify the trajectory and magnitude of change of the key clinical features and corresponding symptom domains of Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson’s disease dementia (PDD) including global cognition, parkinsonism, recurrent visual hallucinations, cognitive fluctuations and sleep disturbance.

Methods: 116 patients with Lewy body dementia (DLB=72, PDD=44) underwent assessment at baseline, 3 and 6 months as part of a prospective multi-centre randomized control trial. Linear mixed models were constructed for core outcome measures using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), motor section of the Unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale (UPDRS-III), Dementia Cognitive Fluctuations Scale (DCFS) and the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI).

Results: Within the timeframe of our study (6 months) we were able to identify a significant cognitive decline of 1.3 points on the MMSE (P=0.002) and significant worsening of motor parkinsonism with an increa...