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An Eval of the Predictive Validity & Inter-Rater Reliability of Diagnostic Crit for Senile Dementia of Lewy Body Type Neurol 44:872-877, McKeith,I.G.,et al, 1994 See this aricle in Pubmed Article Abstract Several recent autopsy studies suggest that senile dementia of Lewy body type(SDLT)may be the second most common neuropathologic cause of dementia in the elderly,accounting for 7 to 30%of all cases.Operational criteria for the antemortem clinical diagnosis of SDLT have already been proposed by our group.The performance of these is now examined by randomizing the case notes from a new series of SDLT,Alzheimer,and multi-infarct dementia patients for psychiatric assessment by four raters of varying clinical experience and blind to pathological diagnosis.The antemortem identification of SDLT patients can therefore be achieved with a high degree of diagnostic specificity using such operationalized criteria, although there remains a minority of patients who present with either" typical"Alzheimer-type symptoms or with paranoid or delusional symptoms in the absence of substantial cognitive impairment.Sensitivity to neuroleptics may be a useful diagnostic pointer in these patients.

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(click to filter results - removes previous filter) dementia dementia,clinical diagnosis interobserver agreement Lewy body Lewy body disease,diffuse neuroleptic neuroleptic sensitivity neurologic disease,diagnoses of paranoia

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