The Complexity of Discovery - article on LBD

[Guest guest]

A caregiver in our local support group follows news about Dennis Dickson, MD, at

Mayo Clinic, as he's the neuropathologist who studied her husband's brain upon

donation to Mayo Jax. She sent me a wonderful Mayo Clinic article on Lewy body

dementia and research going on at Mayo. It refers to the $1 million donation

give to Mayo to study LBD.

The article is copied into this post on the LBDA Forum here:

http://community.lbda.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14 & t=2862

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> As part of Mayo's announcement it has received $1 million to study Lewy Body

Dementia, the Mayo Clinic has posted five videos where neuropathologist Dr.

Dennis Dickson and neuropsychologist Dr. Tanis Ferman provide background on LBD

and speak about treatment and current research.

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> I've provided a link below to the five videos. (The audio volume on all of the

videos was too low -- that is, quiet -- for me.)

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> Robin

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> (The order I've listed the videos here is based on their designated order on

YouTube. It's one long conversation that's been cut in pieces.)

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> LBD Background - Mayo Video, 9 minutes (this is called 1 of 5)

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> (It gets interesting after the two minute mark.)

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> LBD Treatment - Mayo Video, 6 minutes (this is called 2 of 5)

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> (Dr. Dickson discusses the role of pathological research.)

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> Research - Mayo Video, 13 minutes (this is called 3 of 5)

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> (This is one of the most interesting.)

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> Support - Mayo Video, 3 minutes (this is called 4 of 5)

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> (Dr. Ferman discusses caregiver support.)

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> Role of Autopsy - Mayo Video, 7 minutes (this is called 5 of 5)

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> (Dr. Ferman brings up brain autopsy at the very beginning, when death is not

an immediate concern. Dr. Dickson discussed the benefits of brain autopsy -- it

brings a sense of closure, it provides a confirmed diagnosis, and it contributes

to research. Dr. Ferman talks about those families who weren't sure at first if

they'd go through with brain donation. She says that they wanted to know the

diagnosis for the sake of their children. And there were lots of families who

just really wanted to know. Dr. Dickson notes that the diagnostic accuracy was

less than 50% for LBD but he says the accuracy is greatly improved now. He says

that it's an under-recognized disorder. Dr. Ferman makes the points that there

are so many atypical presentations of LBD that autopsy is the only way to know

for sure. Dr. Dickson talks about doing a genome-wide association study in LBD.

Dr. Ferman points out that we know about the usefulness of acetylcholinesterase

inhibitors in LBD because of brain donation. And we know that other medications

are not as helpful because of brain donation. Dr. Dickson points out that the

autopsy improves the clinical diagnosis. He points out that we've learned what

the signature symptoms of LBD are through brain autopsy.)

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