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Delirium prior to dementia as a clinical phenotype of Lewy body disease: an autopsied case report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 August 2016

Hiroshige Fujishiro ,
Ito Kawakami ,
Kenichi Oshima ,
Kazuhiro Niizato  and
Shuji Iritani
Hiroshige Fujishiro*
Affiliation:
Department of Sleep Medicine, Nagoya University School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 466-8550, Japan Department of Psychiatry, Nagoya University School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 466-8550, Japan
Ito Kawakami
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital, 2-1-1 Kamikitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 156-0057, Japan
Kenichi Oshima
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital, 2-1-1 Kamikitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 156-0057, Japan
Kazuhiro Niizato
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital, 2-1-1 Kamikitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, 156-0057, Japan
Shuji Iritani
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Nagoya University School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi, 466-8550, Japan
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Hiroshige Fujishiro MD, PhD, Department of Sleep Medicine, Nagoya University School of Medicine, 65 Tsurumai, Showa-ku, Nagoya, Aichi 466-8550, Japan. Phone: +81-52-744-2282; Fax: +81-52-744-2293. Email: fujishiro17@hotmail.co.jp.
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Abstract

Although delirium shares clinical characteristics with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), there is limited information regarding the relationship between delirium and Lewy body pathology. Here, we report an 89-year-old Japanese woman with an episode of delirium who was pathologically confirmed to have limbic-type Lewy body disease (LBD). Although she exhibited transient visual hallucinations during the delirium, she had no overt dementia. She developed no core clinical features of DLB and died of pneumonia at the age of 90 years. This autopsied case suggests that delirium may be one of the clinical phenotypes of LBD prior to the onset of dementia.

Keywords

dementia with Lewy bodiesAlzheimer's diseasemild cognitive impairmentParkinson's diseaseneuropathology

Information

Type
Case Reports
Information
International Psychogeriatrics , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , April 2017 , pp. 687 - 689
Copyright
Copyright © International Psychogeriatric Association 2016 

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