Researchers, patients trade new insights at International Dementia with Lewy Bodies Conference

You thought Alzheimer's was complicated? Or Parkinson's? Try dementia with Lewy bodies, the disease occupying the awkward territory between those two poles. DLB is arguably the second-most-common form of dementia, but it is heterogeneous and often overlooked.

Yet the International Dementia with Lewy Bodies Conference held earlier this month in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, showcased a field coming into its own. For four days, 400 researchers, patients, care partners, and other stakeholders traded new insights. Because this conference last convened about a decade ago, there was much to learn. Over the din of disease classification debates that perennially accompany spectrum diseases, the meeting reflected a field trying to build on a broadly accepted consensus diagnosis, its unifying foundation.

Pharmaceutical companies are dipping in their toes, brain imaging is making it possible to see what's going on in the brain, GWAS are ramping up, and prodromal biomarker cohorts are forming. Farthest ahead is Japan—the only country that has annual DLB conferences, an approved medication, as well as arguably the best diagnostic scan standardized across centers. Read Alzforum's six-part daily news series about DLB, starting today.