We aim to find markers of progression in Dementia with Lewy Bodies and Parkinson’s Dementia
Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is a common and debilitating form of dementia with prominent falls, visual hallucinations and slowness of movement. Estimated prevalence is 20% of all cases of dementia. DLB shares many clinical and pathological features with Parkinson’s disease and Parkinson’s disease dementia and the conditions are widely considered either end of a spectrum of one disease.
Disease modifying treatments are emerging but a critical gap is the lack of quantitative metrics of disease activity. These will be vital to for clinical trials of emerging therapies to be tested in DLB.
This project, funded by a British Medical Foundation Vera Down grant uses a multimodal approach to identify markers of disease activity in DLB. We have previously shown that quantitative visual measures and retinal thickness are linked with risk of dementia in Parkinson’s disease. Here we test these measures alongside advanced neuroimaging and blood biomarkers in DLB. This research will enable us to validate these quantitative measures as markers of disease activity to enable clinical trials to slow progression of DLB