Primary signs of Lewy Body Dementia:

  • Initial signs are symptoms relating to the frontal brain area: Decision making, attention problems, problem solving, thinking and processing
  • Initial signs are symptoms relating to the parietal brain area: Visual spatial, visual perceptual, visual constructional problems
  • May be the pre-cursor to Parkinson’s Disease
  • Mental illness or frank psychosis is immediately evident

Commonly seen symptoms of Lewy Body Dementia:

Emotional Symptoms:
  • Very suspicious of everyone, accusatory of others: Taking things, trying to hurt themselves
  • The thought that everyone is talking about them
  • They stay home more, uncomfortable in social situations, not liking crowds of people
  • More agitated, restless, uncomfortable
  • Having crazy thoughts they don’t want to talk about
  • Unpredictable emotions, feelings do not fit the situation
  • They can’t handle things in life, easily upset
  • Deep depression, nothing matters
  • Too much into fantasy, living in the movies, living inside themselves
  • Empowered by God, visual hallucinations seeing God, auditory hallucinations, conversations with God that are real to them

Cognitive or Thinking Problems:

  • Problems drawing and copying designs
  • Distorted perception, handwriting may change
  • Visual perception problems that may affect balance and driving
  • Difficulty adding or calculating numbers
  • Cannot find the word they want to say , problems of word retrieval
  • Sequential learning, difficulty learning something new that has steps to it
  • Attending to everything around them, continually distracted by anything novel
  • Cannot complete thoughts or conversations, change topics often
  • Problem solving difficult, using the same solution that does not work
  • Cannot see a problem about to happen, behavior and consequences
  • Thinking not logical, not processing things
  • Misinterpretation of conversation, confused with directions
  • Rigid thinking, right or wrong, no gray or in between
  • Not flexible, cannot shift to new thought, shift plans if things do not work out
  • Distracted by every noise and sound in their environment
  • They hear every noise

See: Non-medical Treatment for any Brain Injury and Dementia