Dementia with Lewy bodies: a commonly unrecognized cause of dementia.

Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the second most common neurodegenerative cause of dementia of the elderly following Alzheimer's disease. The significant clinical features include: fluctuating cognition with pronounced variations in attention and alertness, recurrent visual hallucinations, and spontaneous motor features of parkinsonism. As an alpha-synucleinopathy, DLB is characterized by Lewy bodies of both classical and cortical types with neuritic degeneration. This report describes an autopsy of an elderly woman with DLB and reviews the clinical and pathologic features of dementia with Lewy bodies.