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Mayo Clinic receives $5.75 million for Lewy body dementia research
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The Harry T. Mangurian Jr. Foundation in Palm Beach, Fla., awarded the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville $5.75 million to further study of Lewy body dementia, a disease that often includes psychiatric complications, according to a press release.
“Patients will see things that aren’t there – small animals, small children,” Dennis W. Dickson, MD, a neuropathologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., said in the release. “They will, for example, deny that their spouse is their spouse – ‘You look like my wife, but you’re not my wife. You’re an impostor.’”
Dennis W. Dickson
According to the Mayo Clinic, additional symptoms include: movement disorders similar to those of Parkinson’s disease; poor regulation of body functions such as sweating, dizziness and bowel issues; cognitive problems similar to those of Alzheimer’s disease; sleep difficulties that impact rapid eye movement sleep; fluctuating attention and depression.
Researchers at Mayo Clinic are currently conducting sleep studies, neuroimaging studies, patient studies over time and laboratory research to further understanding of the disease.
“We’re especially grateful to the Mangurian Foundation for their commitment to making Lewy body dementia a more widely known disorder,” Dickson said.
For more information:
Mayo Clinic. Lewy Body Dementia. Accessed January 29, 2015.