My mother passed in May of this year. Her neuropathology report from the Mayo Clinic stated that she had
(1) Diffuse Lewy Body Dementia, (2) Alzheimer's Disease, Early Pathological Stage (BRAAK Stage III-IV). They said that it was common to see Alzheimer's along with the Lewy Body.

She started with a diagnosis of essential tremors around 10-15 years ago and was eventually diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. In June of 2011, she was diagnosed with Lewy Body. Her dementia was noticeable in 2007. It started with slurred words and in 2008, she could not safely live independently anymore.

Let me state first that everyone with Lewy Body is different. The plaques attack the brain in different sections for each person therefore giving different symptons and different reactions to each person.

That being said, here are some of the medicines that did and didn't help my mother.

She did very well on Stalevo, Mirapex, Aricept, and Xanax. She did have hallucinations but they were mild not threatening.

She could not take any anti-psychotics (geodon, serequel). She either became catatonic (geodon) or broke from reality and became paranoid to the point of hospitalization (serequel).

Her tongue swelled with Avelox and she couldn't swallow with Levaquin. The doctor said that it was either the pneumonia or the progression of the disease and not the medicine, but she was able to swallow until she started the Levaquin. By the time she had finished the Levaquin (over 10 days through an IV), she could no longer walk but eventually started to eat just a little (it wasn't enough). She did gain a little strength with physical therapy but was not taking enough food and water in. She eventually dehydrated several times and got to the point where she could not get better. From March until May she lost almost 40 pounds. I decided against a feeding tube as per her advanced directives and her diagnosis.

She could not tolerate Ativan (given to her in the hospital for agitation after they remove her from her Xanax for sleeping too much.

She took blood thinner (aggrenox) and blood pressure medicine without side effects. Towards the end, her blood pressure was all over the place.

She was very sensitive to all medications.

I hope this helps. She would have wanted to help anyone that she could. She did donate her brain for research to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL.

Thank you for sharing the findings of the report !

Thank you for coming back and telling us this, Marie. It will likely help people.
Take care and God bless you.
Pat

Avelox and Levaquin are both fluoroquinolones, and may cause "Peripheral Neuropathy", and perhaps this effects swallowing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_ef ... quinolones

I believe that Dementias involve many causes working in parallel, and one of the causes is Neuro Inflammation. Toxins released by bacterial infection can cause inflammation, and thus take LBD to a deeper level, and this also could account for the dysphagia. So it could be the antibiotic, or the pneumonia, or both. I think that any infection is the greater risk compared to the fluorquinolone antibiotic.

My Dad got many Urinary Tract Infections, and each one made the LBD worse. I wish we had fluorquinolones, or other antibiotics, on hand at home, because home health came every few days, so the UTI was going on for a few days before home health got a sample for antibiotic susceptibility testing , ands then several more days elapsed before our Primary got the susceptibility report and phoned in our prescription.