"Most patients never receive an evaluation by a neurologist skilled in the diagnosis of Lewy body dementia, and significant delays and misdiagnoses occur in most patients with this disease," said James E. Galvin, M.D., M.P.H., one of the most prominent neuroscientists in the country who developed the LBCRS, and a professor of clinical biomedical science in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine and a professor in FAU's Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing. "This new tool has the potential to provide a clearer, more accurate picture for those patients who are unable to be seen by specialists, hastening the correct diagnosis and reducing the strain and burden placed on patients and caregivers."

Another important aspect of the LBCRS is its ability to improve the sensitivity of diagnosis, thereby reducing the risk of exposure to patients with LBD to medications that can have potentially serious adverse consequences. The survey also increases the potential opportunity to receive appropriate symptomatic therapies in a timely fashion, and lessens the inappropriate exclusion from and inclusion into clinical trials.


"Early detection of Lewy body dementias will be important to enable future interventions at the earliest stages when they are likely to be most effective," said Galvin. "Our study provides evidence-based methodology that will have applications in clinical practice, participation in clinical trials, prevention studies, community surveys, and biomarkers research."

Galvin is one of the leading international experts on LBD, and has been working to improve clinical detections by combining biomarkers including high density EEG, functional and structural MRI, PET scans and CSF biomarkers to characterize and differentiate LBD from healthy aging and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Galvin has led efforts to develop a number of dementia screening tools, including the Quick Dementia Rating System (QDRS), AD8, a brief informant interview to translate research findings to community settings. He has done cross-cultural validation of dementia screening methods in comparison with Gold Standard clinical evaluations and biomarker assays. His team also has developed sophisticated statistical models to explore transition points in clinical, cognitive, functional, behavioral and biological markers of disease in healthy aging, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer disease, and Parkinson's disease.

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