Parkinson's Disease Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Parkinson's Disease, including details on symptoms, treatment, genetics, medication.

Visual recognition memory differentiates dementia with Lewy bodies and Parkinson's disease dementia.

Mondon K, Gochard A, Marqué A, Armand A, Beauchamp D, Prunier C, Jacobi D, de Toffol B, Autret A, Camus V, Hommet C

CMRR du Centre et Service de Neurologie, Université François Rabelais, CHRU Tours, Tours, France. karl.mondon@med.univ-tours.fr

OBJECTIVE: To compare cognitive impairments in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD), to discriminate between the two entities. METHODS: 10 DLB and 12 PDD consecutive patients performed a neuropsychological battery designed to assess several cognitive domains: verbal and visual memory (Delayed Matching to Sample (DMS)-48), language, gnosia, praxia and executive functions. RESULTS: DLB patients had poorer performances in orientation (p<0.05), Trail Making Test A (p<0.05) and reading of names of colours in the Stroop Test (p<0.05). Their scores were also lower in the visual object recognition memory test (DMS-48), in both immediate (p<0.05) and delayed recognition (p<0.05). No differences were observed in the other tests. CONCLUSION: Despite global similarities in cognitive performances between DLB and PDD patients, we observed important differences: in particular, DMS-48, a test of visual object recognition memory and visual storage capacity, was poorer in DLB patients.

Published 18 June 2007 in J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 78(7): 738-41.
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