FAU will host groundbreaking drug trial for Alzheimer’s-like disease

South Florida will be part of potentially groundbreaking research into a littleknown, but not uncommon, neurological disorder that is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease.

The first U.S. clinical trial to look at medications targeting what’s termed “dementia with Lewy bodies” will include a site at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. The disease has no specific treatment or cure.

Patient enrollment is expected to begin in March.

Dr. James Galvin, a professor and associate dean for clinical research at FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, who will head the South Florida trial, called Lewy body “the most common disease you’ve never heard of” — even though about 1.3 million Americans have it.

One of them was actorcomedian Robin Williams, who was 63 when he killed himself in August 2014.

An autopsy showed that Williams had the abnormal Lewy body protein deposits in his brain. His family said he began showing symptoms in November 2013. Within six months, the Alist entertainer had a shuffling gait, was losing his voice, and was slipping in and out of reality, his widow, Susan Williams, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in November.

Lewy body is the second most-common dementia after the far better-known Alzheimer’s, and the two often overlap. About 80 percent of all patients with Lewy body also have Alzheimer’s, Galvin said, and 40 percent of all Alzheimer’s patients have Lewy body as well. The disease also can co-exist with Parkinson’s.

While all three diseases have similar causes and symptoms — they typically are age-related, irreversible, and dreaded by seniors and their families — Lewy body in some ways is particularly brutal, experts say. Lewy body patients tend to be younger than those with Alzheimer’s, deteriorate more quickly and develop extreme symptoms like hallucinations and violent nightmares early in the disease process.

They often resemble Parkinson’s patients, Galvin said, with a shuffling walk, stiffness and balance problems. While Alzheimer’s patients typically have gradual but steady declines in memory and cognition skills, the ability to concentrate and stay in reality can fluctuate drastically among Lewy body patients, Galvin said.

Because its symptoms mimic other diseases, physicians can find it difficult to recognize Lewy body dementia, Galvin said. In some cases, patients are told they have a psychiatric problem like bipolar disorder, he said.