Unpacking Psychiatric Symptoms in Lewy Body Dementia: Live Q&A

The psychiatric symptoms of Lewy body dementia (LBD) are among the most bothersome for families and the most difficult to manage for health care providers. Recurrent visual, auditory, and other sensory hallucinations occur in up to 80% of people with LBD and may be accompanied by delusions, which are often paranoid in nature. Changes to mood such as apathy, anxiety, agitation and depressive symptoms are also common LBD symptoms. Unfortunately, a severe sensitivity to antipsychotics is also a common symptom of DLB, complicating medical management efforts.

Our new course, Unpacking Psychiatric Symptoms, now available on the Lewy Learning Center, provides an overview of the presentation of the psychiatric symptoms of LBD and how they are managed.

In this live webinar, Unpacking Psychiatric Symptoms in Lewy Body Dementia:  Live Q&A, Dr. Chiadi Onyike from LBDA’s Research Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, will address your questions regarding challenges related to psychiatric symptoms.

You can contribute to this webinar by submitting questions in advance. Simply go to Lesson 4 in the Unpacking Psychiatric Symptoms course on the Lewy Learning Center and use the form in the lesson to submit your question.

To attend the webinar, click here to register.

LBDA’s Lewy Learning Center is a platform for sharing education on Lewy body dementia (LBD) with the community and health care professionals. A go to place for on-demand learning, courses are available to watch at any time, share with friends and family members, with unlimited viewing options.

New to the Lewy Learning Center?  Enroll today! Simply create an account by providing your name and email address, and then start learning!

For questions or more information, please contact Rose Heithoff, LBDA Education Coordinator at rheithoff@lbda.org.

About Dr. Dr. Chiadi Onyike

Chiadi Uchendu Onyike, MBBS, MHS, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University

Dr. Onyike is a specialist in neuropsychiatry. He focuses on the diagnosis and care of neurodegenerative diseases that develop in midlife or earlier. These include frontotemporal dementias, young-onset Alzheimer diseases, prion diseases, leukodystrophy and other atypical conditions that cause cognitive and behavioral impairments and dementia. He is also engaged in research focused on the epidemiology and treatment of frontotemporal dementias, Alzheimer disease, Lewy body disease, spinocerebellar ataxias, and other neurodegenerative disorders. He was formerly co-director of the Johns Hopkins Lewy Body Dementia Research Center of Excellence.

Dr. Onyike has advised national and international research agencies including the NIH, FDA, MRC-UK, and others. He has served on NIA/NINDS Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias workshop committees. He is the Chair-Elect of the Medical Advisory Council of the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the FTD Disorders Registry and the Tau Consortium. He also serves on the Lewy Body Dementia Association’s clinical workgroups, and on the Alzheimer’s Association Best Clinical Practices Guidelines Work Group. He is a founding member of the International Society for Frontotemporal Dementias, and a member of its Executive Committee.