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Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer's: what the studies report
Dementia with Lewy bodies is the second most common degenerative dementia after Alzheimer's and is often mistaken for it. This page shows what the library holds on telling them apart.
- 1,409studies in the library match, of 31,380
- 648name it in the title
- 1983–2026years published
- 1,362peer-reviewed articles
The query: title or abstract mentions "Lewy body/bodies", "DLB" or "alpha-synuclein", matched case-insensitively against each record's title and abstract (its summary field) in alzhub's library of 31,380 study records, as of 2026-11-13. Every count on this page comes from that match. The matched list as JSON.
Lewy bodies are clumps of the protein alpha-synuclein inside brain cells, the same protein that causes Parkinson's disease. Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) typically brings fluctuating attention, visual hallucinations, Parkinson-like movement changes and acting out dreams during sleep, alongside memory and thinking problems. Many people have both Lewy body and Alzheimer's pathology at autopsy, which is one reason diagnosis is hard in life.
Telling the two apart matters for treatment: some medicines used for behaviour in Alzheimer's cause severe reactions in DLB. Studies in the set cover imaging, spinal fluid and skin tests that detect alpha-synuclein, and the accuracy of clinical criteria.
This page describes what published research in alzhub's library reports. It is not medical advice and does not apply to any one person. Only a doctor who knows the person's history can say what a result or a treatment means for them.
What the studies report, in their own words
Whole sentences copied from the abstract or key findings of the highest-scoring matched studies, chosen because they mention the subject and give a figure. 8 of the 1,409 matched records are quoted; each links to its study page and from there to the paper.
“Tau tracer uptake values of PD patients (n = 178) were lower than those of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (n = 122) in the frontal lobe and occipital lobe and lower than those in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) (n = 55) in the occipital lobe and infratemporal lobe.”
“Our meta-analyses confirmed level-1 evidence for Donepezil's efficacy of managing cognitive symptoms of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) (SMD = 0.63; p < 0.001) and Parkinson's Disease Dementia (PDD) (SMD = 0.43; p < 0.01), and managing hallucinations in DLB (SMD=-0.52; p = 0.02).”
“The combined PAF was also different by age at diagnosis and ADRD subtypes, higher for younger (65-74 years: 43.2%) than older (75-84 years: 32.4%; ≥85 years: 11.3%) diagnoses and higher for vascular or unspecified ADRD than for AD or Lewy body dementia.”
“Among 2 184 847 Danish citizens aged between 65 and 95 years, there were 3024 individuals with DLB (mean [SD] age, 78 [6], 1894 [62.6%] male) and 3808 with PDD (mean [SD] age, 78 [6], 2400 [63.0%] male) who were matched with 30 240 and 38 080 controls, respectively.”
“Results Obese patients treated with GLP-1 receptor agonists showed significantly lower risks of developing Alzheimer's disease (RR = 0.627, 95 %CI = 0.481-0.817), Lewy body dementia (RR = 0.590, 95 %CI = 0.462-0.753), and vascular dementia (RR = 0.438, 95 %CI = 0.327-0.588).”
“(123) I-metaiodobenzylguanidine cardiac scintigraphy can accurately distinguish between 2 movement disorders, Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy, and between 2 common causes of dementia, Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. © 2011 Movement Disorder Society.”
“Our findings confirm the high correlation between abnormal (low binding) DAT activity measured with (123)I-FP-CIT SPECT and a clinical diagnosis of probable DLB.”
“For AD versus DLB distinction, only miR-21-5p and miR-451a achieved excellent accuracy (AUC >0.9).”
What kind of evidence it is
By study design
| Design (as recorded) | Studies |
|---|---|
| Systematic review or meta-analysis | 48 |
| Randomized controlled trial | 3 |
| Other clinical trial | 13 |
| Cohort or longitudinal study | 138 |
| Case-control study | 18 |
| Cross-sectional study | 48 |
| Other recorded design | 4 |
| No design recorded | 1,137 |
The design is the one named in alzhub's record for the study; a record with none is counted as "no design recorded".
By year
| Year | Studies | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 97 | |
| 2025 | 218 | |
| 2024 | 59 | |
| 2023 | 44 | |
| 2022 | 58 | |
| 2021 | 57 | |
| 2020 | 67 | |
| 2019 | 52 | |
| 2018 | 67 | |
| 2017 | 49 | |
| 2016 and earlier | 641 |
Other counts within the matched set
| Peer-reviewed articles | 1,362 |
| Marked open access in the record | 431 |
| Rated "high" evidence strength in alzhub's summary | 77 |
| Rated "moderate" evidence strength in alzhub's summary | 278 |
| Rated "low" evidence strength in alzhub's summary | 1,045 |
| No evidence-strength rating | 9 |
| Records stating a participant count | 489 |
| Median participants (those records) | 109 |
| Largest participant count | 1,333,424 |
Within the 1,409 matched studies
| Studies… | Count | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| …that also mention Alzheimer's in the same abstract | 890 | the abstract also contains "Alzheimer" |
| …that mention a synuclein test (seed amplification, skin biopsy, CSF) | 237 | the abstract also contains "seed amplification", "skin biopsy", "CSF" or "cerebrospinal" |
| …that mention hallucinations or fluctuations | 91 | the abstract also contains "hallucination" or "fluctuation" |
The 10 highest-scoring matched studies
Title matches first, then by alzhub's usefulness score, which rates a study's design, journal, evidence and recency, not whether its result is good news.
- Investigating the genetic architecture of dementia with Lewy bodies: a two-stage genome-wide association study
- Systematic review of pharmacological interventions for people with Lewy body dementia
- Exercise for Individuals with Lewy Body Dementia: A Systematic Review
- Exposure to Air Pollutants and Lewy Body and Parkinson Disease-Related Dementias
- Alpha-synuclein co-pathology in a real-world early Alzheimer's disease cohort
- Efficacy of rivastigmine in dementia with Lewy bodies: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled international study
- Memantine in patients with Parkinson's disease dementia or dementia with Lewy bodies: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicentre trial
- Genome-wide association study provides insights into the genetic basis of Lewy body dementia
- Cholinesterase inhibitors for dementia with Lewy bodies, Parkinson's disease dementia and cognitive impairment in Parkinson's disease
- Nilotinib Effects in Parkinson's disease and Dementia with Lewy bodies
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses in the set
48 of the matched records are recorded as a systematic review, meta-analysis or umbrella review; the highest-scoring not already listed above:
- Tau-PET imaging in Parkinson's disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis
- Clinical diagnostic criteria for dementia associated with Parkinson's disease
- Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) for the detection of dementia in clinically unevaluated people aged 65 and over in community and primary care populations
- Meta-analysis of 123I-MIBG cardiac scintigraphy for the diagnosis of Lewy body-related disorders
- Blood Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Neurodegenerative Dementia: A Systematic Review
Newest matched studies
- Inflammatory biomarker candidates in dementia with Lewy bodies: diagnostic classification, clinical associations, and survival
- TMEM106B C-Terminal fragment aggregation exacerbates α-synuclein and TDP-43 proteinopathy phenotypes
- Neuroinflammation is an early pathological process in a mouse model of prodromal Parkinsons disease
- Cerebrospinal fluid α-synuclein seed amplification assay positivity identifies a prognostically distinct subgroup in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Genetic susceptibility to Lewy body disease and the distribution of Lewy pathology
Journals with the most matched studies
| Journal | Studies |
|---|---|
| Neurology | 97 |
| Brain : a journal of neurology | 49 |
| Acta neuropathologica | 46 |
| Annals of neurology | 41 |
| Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society | 39 |
Questions
- How is Lewy body dementia different from Alzheimer's?
- Different protein, different early symptoms: alpha-synuclein rather than amyloid and tau, and fluctuating attention, visual hallucinations, movement changes and dream-enactment sleep behaviour early on, with memory often less affected at first. The two can occur together.
- How many studies on lewy body dementia vs alzheimer's does alzhub hold?
- 1,409 of the 31,380 study records in alzhub's library match the query "title or abstract mentions "Lewy body/bodies", "DLB" or "alpha-synuclein"". Of these, 648 name it in the title. Counted from the records when this page was built.
- What kinds of study are they?
- 48 systematic review or meta-analysis, 3 randomized controlled trials, 13 other clinical trials, 138 cohort or longitudinal studys, 18 case-control studys, 48 cross-sectional studys; 1,137 record no design.
- What is the most recent study in the set?
- "Inflammatory biomarker candidates in dementia with Lewy bodies: diagnostic classification, clinical associations, and survival" (Research Square, 2026), the newest by publication date among the matched records.
- Which journals publish most on it?
- Neurology (97); Brain : a journal of neurology (49); Acta neuropathologica (46), counted across the matched records.
Read on
- Lewy body dementia: research in the libraryThe subject hub.
- Getting a diagnosisWhat the diagnostic process involves.
- Frontotemporal dementiaAnother dementia often confused with Alzheimer's.