Numbers
- 3rd most common type of cortical dementia after Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia.
Classification
- Frontotemporal dementia (Pick’s disease).
- Most common type
- Clinical features
- Personality change and impaired social conduct.
- Hyperorality, disinhibition, increased appetite, and perseveration behaviors.
- Investigation
- Focal gyral atrophy (“knife-blade” atrophy
- Localized to frontal and temporal lobes only.
- Microscopic findings include
- Pick bodies
- Gliosis
- Neurofibrillary tangles
- Senile plaques
- Progressive non-fluent aphasia (chronic progressive aphasia).
- Patients have non-fluent speech, they make short utterances that are agrammatic but comprehension is relatively preserved.
- Semantic dementia
- Here the patient has a progressive fluent aphasia but speech lacks content and conveys little meaning.
- Unlike in Alzheimer’s memory is better for recent rather than remote events.
Clinical features
- Onset < 65 years,
- Insidious onset,
- Relatively preserved memory and visuospatial skills,
- Personality change and social conduct problems.
Investigation
- CT shows cortical loss in the frontal and temporal lobes,
- FDG-PET/CT shows hypometabolism.
Made with Bullet