Dementia with Lewy bodies, also known as Lewy body disease, is the second most frequent cause of age-related neurodegenerative dementia. At least 5 percent of people aged 85 and older are thought to suffer from this little known but not uncommon devastating disease. In the UK approximately 130,000 are thought to suffer from DLB.
There are presently approximately 750,000 people with dementia in the UK and this number is projected to rise to 870,000 by the year 2010 and 1.8 million by the year 2050 unless cures are found. These figures represent only patients; caregivers double or treble the number of people whose lives are directly affected by dementia and relations and friends increase these numbers further.
DLB shares mental symptoms such as confusion and loss of memory with Alzheimer’s disease and motor symptoms such as slow movement which can resemble Parkinson’s disease. For that reason it is often misdiagnosed. Accurate diagnosis is essential for successful treatment of the disease: people with DLB are characteristically highly sensitive to certain drugs which can worsen unpleasant symptoms or even be fatal.
The Lewy Body Society was founded in 2006 in order to raise awareness and educate the public, the medical profession and those in health care decision making positions about Dementia with Lewy bodies.
We are the only charity in Europe exclusively concerned with Dementia with Lewy bodies. The charity's mission is to raise awareness of DLB for the general public and educate those in the medical profession and decision making positions about all aspects of the disease and to support research into the disease.
DLB was virtually unknown until a decade ago. Due in large part to a close collaboration between researchers in the UK, Japan and the USA, it is now recognised as a distinct medical condition and not a variant of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases.
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