Here's an abstract of an interesting article published on the boundary between DLB and PDD. It discusses agreements made by the DLB/PDD Working Group. One was to endorse "Lewy body disorders" as the umbrella term for PD, PDD, and DLB. "We concluded that the differing temporal sequence of symptoms and clinical features of PDD and DLB justify distinguishing these disorders. However, a single Lewy body disorder model was deemed more useful for studying disease pathogenesis."

Citation and abstract follow:

Neurology. 2007 Mar 13;68(11):812-9.

DLB and PDD boundary issues: diagnosis, treatment, molecular pathology, and biomarkers.

Lippa CF, Duda JE, Grossman M, Hurtig HI, Aarsland D, Boeve BF, Brooks DJ, Dickson DW, Dubois B, Emre M, Fahn S, Farmer JM, Galasko D, Galvin JE, Goetz CG, Growdon JH, Gwinn-Hardy KA, Hardy J, Heutink P, Iwatsubo T, Kosaka K, Lee VM, Leverenz JB, Masliah E, McKeith IG, Nussbaum RL, Olanow CW, Ravina BM, Singleton AB, Tanner CM, Trojanowski JQ, Wszolek ZK; DLB/PDD Working Group.

Department of Neurology, Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA. clippa@drexelmed.edu

For more than a decade, researchers have refined criteria for the diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and at the same time have recognized that cognitive impairment and dementia occur commonly in patients with Parkinson disease (PD). This article addresses the relationship between DLB, PD, and PD with dementia (PDD). The authors agreed to endorse "Lewy body disorders" as the umbrella term for PD, PDD, and DLB, to promote the continued practical use of these three clinical terms, and to encourage efforts at drug discovery that target the mechanisms of neurodegeneration shared by these disorders of alpha-synuclein metabolism. We concluded that the differing temporal sequence of symptoms and clinical features of PDD and DLB justify distinguishing these disorders. However, a single Lewy body disorder model was deemed more useful for studying disease pathogenesis because abnormal neuronal alpha-synuclein inclusions are the defining pathologic process common to both PDD and DLB. There was consensus that improved understanding of the pathobiology of alpha-synuclein should be a major focus of efforts to develop new disease-modifying therapies for these disorders. The group agreed on four important priorities: 1) continued communication between experts who specialize in PDD or DLB; 2) initiation of prospective validation studies with autopsy confirmation of DLB and PDD; 3) development of practical biomarkers for alpha-synuclein pathologies; 4) accelerated efforts to find more effective treatments for these diseases.

PubMed ID: 17353469

Robin I liked the last sentence the best. Lets hope