The Cognitive Profile of Mild Cognitive Impairment Due to Dementia With Lewy Bodies—An Updated Review

Abstract

Objective: Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) is the second most common type of neurodegenerative dementia. Yet, the domain-specific cognitive impairment of the mild cognitive impairment (MCI) phase of this disease (DLB-MCI) is still not been established. This article gives an updated review on the neuropsychological profile of DLB-MCI, building on the findings from a previous review.Methods: We performed systematic review and searched five different electronic databases (Scopus, Cochrane, EMBASE, MEDLINE, and PsycINFO) in May 2020 based on a PICO scheme. Our search was then restricted to articles published in 2019 and 2020. Ending up with a total of 90 articles to be reviewed by abstract and/or full text.Results: In total four papers were included, whereof only one met our full inclusion criteria. Despite a substantial heterogeneity, our findings indicate that DLB-MCI patients have a pattern of executive, visuospatial, and attentional deficits.Conclusion: The findings indicate that the neuropsychological profile of DLB-MCI is characterized by executive, visuospatial, and attentional deficits. Furthermore, the shortage of studies clearly underlines the paucity of published research into DLB-MCI and emphasizes the need for well-controlled studies.

Neuropsychological Impairments and Their Cognitive Architecture in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) with Lewy Bodies and MCI-Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Neuropsychological impairments in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and AD differ, but few well-controlled comparative studies of sufficient sample size have been done in the MCI stages (see Ciafone, Little, Thomas, & Gallagher, 2020;Hemminghyth, Chwiszczuk, Rongve, & Breitve, 2020 for reviews). In MCI-LB, deficits have been reported predominantly in domains impaired in DLB (i.e., visuospatial function, attention, executive function; Donaghy, Taylor, et al, 2018;Donaghy, O'Brien, & Thomas, 2015) although other studies suggest a broad (Kemp et al, 2017) and heterogeneous (Hemminghyth et al, 2020) range of cognitive deficits.…”

Exploring the Sensitivity of Prodromal Dementia with Lewy Bodies Research Criteria

“…Impairments in attention are a characteristic finding in DLB, and some previous studies have identified this in MCI-LB patients using Digit Span, TMT part B and Stroop [ 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 ]. These conflicting findings may be due to several reasons, including the fact that previous studies investigated MCI-LB patients that were diagnosed by combining MCI, DLB or PDD criteria [ 65 , 66 ] or by retrospectively assigning a diagnosis depending on the individual’s clinical transition [ 64 ]. These studies also reported higher frequencies of CF, VH and parkinsonism, suggesting a more severe population than tested in the current study.…”

New Insights into Potential Biomarkers in Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment Occurring in the Prodromal Stage of Dementia with Lewy Bodies

“…A review of several studies also showed that when caused by prodromal DLB, MCI's neuropsychological profile is mainly characterized by deficits in executive, visuospatial, and attentional functions [19]. Another recent investigation confirmed that patients with MCI-LB, in particular, performed poorly in visuoconstructive and executive functions [17].…”