Progressive aphasia with Lewy bodies

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) may include both Alzheimer and Lewy body pathology, but has never been reported to cause primary progressive aphasia. We report a 69-year-old woman who died 11 years after presenting with the syndrome of progressive aphasia. Six years after aphasia onset she developed visual hallucinations, and subsequently parkinsonism. Autopsy examination revealed Alzheimer's disease (AD), cortical Lewy bodies, and depigmentation and Lewy bodies in the substantia nigra and locus ceruleus. The aphasia most likely reflected the initial onset of AD, and the psychosis and parkinsonism most likely reflected the subsequent onset of Lewy body pathology. This first reported case of progressive aphasia occurring within the context of AD and Lewy body pathology uniquely illustrates the clinical and pathological nosological relationships between these two disease processes, and demonstrates a limitation of the general term, 'DLB'. Copyright © 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Publication Date

12-1-2002

Publication Title

Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders

ISSN

14208008

Volume

14

Issue

2

First Page

55

Last Page

58

PubMed ID

12145451

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

10.1159/000064925

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