Lewy Body Dementia

Non-preventable and Non-reversible: Lewy Body Dementia On April 10th 2010, my dad informed me that my grandmother had passed away. She was 90-years-old, and although she may have lived a long life, the last eight or so years of her life were very rough. The official reason she passed away was because of Lewy Body Dementia. This degenerative disease, meaning it is not reversible, is thought to have sprouted from an infection she had in her kidneys in 2002. She lived at home for a while after her kidney disease was found and treated, but was moved to an assisted living center in 2007 because of occasional hallucinations, and family was unable to stay with her at her home. As time progressed, her dementia got worse. She slowly started having hallucinations more frequently, became very forgetful, and eventually was unable to perform any tasks on her own. “Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. It affects memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behavior,” stated by Google Health. Mayoclinic.com suggests that “in Lewy body dementia, abnormal round structures — called Lewy bodies — develop in regions of your brain involved in thinking and movement.” Although the specific cause of dementia is unknown, specialists believe that it relates to Alzheimer’s Disease, and Parkinson’s Disease. Evidence of these two diseases has been seen in Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) The cause may not be known, but there are many symptoms that can be easily noticed without difficult tests, such as detailed hallucinations, trembling hands, delusions, sleep difficulties, and more. “A clinical diagnosis of LBD can be probable or possible based on different symptom combinations,“ discusses Lbda.org, the Lewy Body Dementia Association website. A probable diagnosis consists of dementia plus two or more core features, or dementia plus a single core feature and one or more suggestive features. A possible diagnosis is dementia plus one core feature, or dementia and one

Cited: "Dementia." Google Health. Web. 30 Oct. 2010. . Mayo Clinic Staff. "Lewy Body Dementia - MayoClinic.com." Mayo Clinic Medical Information and Tools for Healthy Living - MayoClinic.com. 17 Sept. 2010. Web. 30 Oct. 2010. . Welcome to the Lewy Body Dementia Association. Web. 31 Oct. 2010. .