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Neuropsychological performance in Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer's disease

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2018

Zuzana Walker ,
Ruth L. Allen ,
Sukhwinder Shergill  and
Cornelius L. E. Katona
Zuzana Walker*
Affiliation:
University College London Medical School and Whittington Hospital
Ruth L. Allen
Affiliation:
North London Rotational Training Scheme in Psychiatry
Sukhwinder Shergill
Affiliation:
Maudsley Hospital, London
Cornelius L. E. Katona
Affiliation:
University College London Medical School and Princess Alexandra Hospital, Harlow
*
Dr Zuzana Walker, Department of Psychiatry, University College London Medical School, Wolfson Building, Riding House Street, London WIN 8AA
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Abstract

Background

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is emerging as a common cause of degenerative dementia. However, LBD cannot yet be diagnosed with certainty in life. There is some preliminary evidence that the pattern of cognitive impairment in LBD is different from that in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We set out to compare the performance on different subtests of the Cambridge Cognitive Examination (CAMCOG) of LBD patients and AD patients who were similar in overall degree of cognitive impairment.

Methods

All patients were recruited from a memory clinic LBD (n = 17) was diagnosed according to the McKeith clinical criteria. AD (n = 17) was diagnosed according to NINCDS-ADRDA criteria. The performances of LBD and AD patients on the neuropsychological subscales of the CAMCOG were compared by applying Hotelling's multivariate test of significance and subsequent univariate F tests.

Results

There were no statistically significant differences between the two groups on Mini-Mental State Examination and global CAMCOG rating. Hotelling's test with LBD and AD as the between-group factor and the neuropsychological subtests from CAMCOG as dependent variables revealed a statistically significant group effect (P < 0.05). Univariate F tests showed that recall (P < 0.02) and praxis (P < 0.003) significantly contributed to this effect.

Conclusions

These results suggest that there may be different neuropsychological profiles in the two conditions, with LBD subjects being better on recall but worse on praxis than those with AD.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 170 , Issue 2 , February 1997 , pp. 156 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

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