Uncle Lewy, as we call him, is a hard fella to get to know quickly
The reality is that its not been too long, roughly a decade, that doctors had access to a test to use to clearly diagnose this disease
As recent as 2014, when Robin Williams unfortunately left us, there was no way to diagnose that he had Lewy Body Dementia while he was alive
He was only diagnosed with this after he passed away, through his autopsy
Since clear diagnosis during lifetime is a new thing, doctors, other professionals and families dealing with this disease don’t have the wide array of developed and tested tools, knowledge, programs, etc. as more known diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer, etc.
Lewy Body Dementia (LBD) is different from Alzheimer’s, in both pathology and in the manifestations of behavior
The pathology (details of the cause) of LBD is the same as Parkinson’s Disease, the difference is the disease affects and interferes with the cognitive regions of the brain first. Parkinson’s affects the motor movement part of the brain first.
The cause of Alzheimer’s is totally different and I don’t know really enough about that disease to say more than that, its just different. We did walk along side of Matt’s dad through his Alzheimer’s journey, so we all learned from that.
The commonalities, truly, are both diseases affect the brain and both are horrible
LBD causes delusions: the strong belief that something is true, really believing it, but its not true at all. Like your spouse or partner is having an affair, your car is going to be repossessed, the cops are going to come today to take you away
LBD causes hallucinations: visually seeing things that aren’t actually visible to anyone else. Animals, a cat, another dog, a small child in the yard, rain inside a grocery store
LBD directly damages the brain’s executive functions: including how to figure things out, how to process inputs quickly to avoid collisions (think driving), how to process instructions
The simplest things can be affected, for example, what order to put your pants, socks and shoes on
That’s an explanation of LBD in lay terms……
There are resources to learn more, especially the Lewy Body Dementia Association
Other resources I’ve accumulated are on a separate pages here:
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Uncle Lewy 