Cognitive profiles of autopsy-confirmed LBV vs pure Alzheimer\u27s disease

Objective. To compare the cognitive profiles of patients with autopsy-confirmed Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) pathology, with or without concomitant Lewy body Pathology on two dementia screening measures. ^ Methods. Profiles on subtests of the Mattis Dementia rating scale (MDRS; range = 105–125 ) and of component items of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) were compared between 23 patients with uncomplicated AD and 23 patients with concomitant AD and Lewy body pathology (LBV). ^ Results. Although the groups did not differ significantly in age, years of education, total Mini-Mental State Exam score or total MDRS score, the AD group performed significantly worse than the LBV group on the MDRS Memory subscale (p \u3c .005). In contrast, the LBV group demonstrated poorer performance than the pure AD group on the Initiation/Perseveration subscale (p \u3c .02). The groups did not differ significantly on the Attention, Construction or Conceptualization subscales. The same overall pattern of results were obtained when mildly-to-moderately and moderately-to-severely demented subgroups were examined separately, with the additional finding that in the mild-to-moderate range, demented LBV patients performed worse than AD patients on the Construction subscale. ^ Conclusions. The difference in pattern of deficits is similar to that seen between AD and more subcortical/frontal dementias (e.g., Huntington\u27s Disease), suggesting that the concomitant Lewy Body pathology significantly contributes to the presentation of the LBV\u27s cognitive dysfunction.