The management of psychotic symptoms in dementia with lewy bodies (DLB)

Abstract

The long-term care and management of psychoses in the elderly graphic changes which have resulted in a "graying of the population", the number of older individuals with chronic psychiatric illnesses (ego schizophrenia; bipolar mood disorder) is also increasing. The same demographic trends are causing a significant increase in the incidence of neurodegenerative disorders (ego Alzheimer's Disease) which are frequently characterized by behavioural changes in addition to their cognitive stigmata. This presentation will describe the prevalence and phenomenology of psychiatric syndromes and neurodegenerative illnesses in the elderly population, and will detail the differential diagnosis which the psychiatrist must invoke in order to arrive at a satisfactory diagnosis in the individual patient.