Responding to and Treating Hallucinations in Lewy Body Dementia

People with Lewy body dementia are more likely to experience hallucinations than those with Alzheimer's or vascular dementia, and in general, they experience them earlier in the disease process than people do with other types of dementia. For some people, these hallucinations may even be one of the first symptoms of Lewy body dementia they experience.

Up to 80% of people with Lewy body dementia experience visual hallucinations. These hallucinations are often recurrent and very detailed. Hallucinations of adults, children or animals are common.

Some research has found a correlation between the presence of hallucinations and an increased amount of cognitive impairment in Lewy body dementia. Hallucinations in LBD have also been associated with a decrease in quality of life; thus, having an awareness of how to respond to them can be very helpful for both the person living with LBD and his caregiver.

Responding to Lewy Body Dementia Hallucinations

It can be difficult to know how best respond to hallucinations in Lewy body dementia. Because these hallucinations often occur earlier in the disease process, some people respond well to gentle reality orientation and reassurances that the hallucination isn't real. Although it's not recommended to try to persuade someone with Alzheimer's disease that what they're seeing or hearing isn't there, in Lewy body dementia, you may want to try that method first since there are usually fewer cognitive deficits in the person with Lewy body dementia when they're experiencing hallucinations.

If your family member directly asks you if you see the person that he sees across the room, experts and family members recommend being truthful and acknowledging that although you don't see her, you know that he does. Family members have told stories about how their loved one with Lewy body dementia caught them in small untruths and became angry and agitated.

If your loved one is very upset and distraught about his hallucination, you will want to use caution and provide some extra space between you and him. In his distress, it's possible he could mistake you for his hallucination or experience a catastrophic reaction and become combative. Reassure him and ask him if you can come sit by him before entering his space.

You can also try using validation therapy and ask him what the person looks like, how long they've been there, and what makes the person go away.

Other options include using distraction by going into a different room or for a walk outside, turning on some music, talking about the football game or calling the dog over to your loved one for some  pet therapy.

Treatment of Hallucinations in Lewy Body Dementia

When someone with Lewy body dementia experiences hallucinations, treatment might follow a similar protocol to treatment of hallucinations in other kinds of dementia with a very important exception: the use of anti-psychotic medications. About half of people with Lewy body dementia are extremely sensitive to typical antipsychotic medications including Haldol and can experience severe and life-threatening reactions to them. Atypical anti-psychotics may be less likely to provoke a serious reaction but caution is very important when considering the use of antipsychotic medications in Lewy body dementia.

It's also important to note that in some people with Lewy body dementia, Sinemet ( carbidopa / levadopa)—a medication that may be prescribed to treat the movement challenges of the disease—can cause or worsen hallucinations in these people.

Research has shown that some people with Lewy body dementia who experience hallucinations have benefited from cholinesterase inhibitors. This class of medication has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat Alzheimer's disease and is often used for other dementias as well. Cholinesterase inhibitors include the drugs Aricept (donepezil), Exelon (revastigmine) and Razadyne (galantamine).

A Final Word 

Finally, remember that Lewy body dementia, like other dementias, is a disease that affects the whole family. No matter how much you love the person, caring for someone with Lewy body dementia can be very draining on both your physical and emotional energy. If you're running on empty or just at a loss for what to do, consider attending a support group or looking into other ways to provide in-home care or facility care for your loved one.

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These Personality Traits Could Put You At Risk for Social Media Addiction

Whether it's scrolling through Instagram or constantly refreshing your Facebook feed, social media can eat up hours of your day. But if you find it particularly hard to stay away from social media, your personality may be partly to blame.

According to a new study, people with certain personality traits are more likely to develop a social media addiction.

"There has been plenty of research on how the interaction of certain personality traits affects addiction to things like alcohol and drugs," an assistant professor of information systems said in a statement. But relatively few studies have looked at how personality traits may affect tech addiction, including addiction to social media, the researchers said. 

In the new study, the researchers surveyed about 300 college students to assess their personality and gauge their level of addiction to the social media site each individual used most frequently. (Questions to measure social media addiction included: "I sometimes neglect important things because of my interest in this social networking website"; "When I am not using this social networking website, I often feel agitated"; and "I have made unsuccessful attempts to reduce the time I interact with this social networking website.")

The study found that three personality traits in particular —neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness — were related to social media addiction. Two other personality traits, extraversion and openness to experience, weren't linked with social media addiction.

Specifically, the researchers found that people with high levels of neuroticism, or the tendency to experience negative emotions such as stress and anxiety, were more likely to develop addiction to social media, compared with people who had low levels of neuroticism.

In contrast, people with high levels of conscientiousness, or the tendency to have impulse control and a strong drive to achieve specific goals, were less likely to develop addiction to social media.

However, the researchers noted that even people with high conscientiousness could be prone to social media addiction if they were also high in neuroticism. This may be because high levels of stress and anxiousness could override a person's perceived control over their social media use, the researchers said.

In addition, the trait of agreeableness — or the degree to which someone is friendly, empathetic and helpful — by itself had no effect on social media addiction. But this was not true when the researchers looked at agreeableness in combination with conscientiousness.

They found that people with low levels of both agreeableness and conscientiousness were more likely to develop social media addiction than people with average levels of these personality traits. But surprisingly, people with high levels of both of these personality traits were also more likely to develop social network addiction, compared to people with average levels of the two traits.

It's possible that people who have high levels of both agreeableness and conscientiousness make a conscious decision to use social networks more, in order to help their friendships flourish, the researchers said.

It's important to note that because the study involved a few hundred college students at a single university, more research is needed to confirm the findings, the researchers said. But they added that the findings could have implications for those who treat tech addictions.

"Our findings explain that users with higher levels of IT addictions may not be considered as one homogeneous group of users, as different personality traits can play different roles in users' dispositions toward IT addiction," the researchers wrote in their paper, which was presented in a conference recently.

A researcher added that he hopes the findings will encourage people to look at the "whole picture" of how personality traits affect tech addiction, "rather than just focusing on one personality trait" at a time.

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