Frontotemporal Dementia
Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) is a form of progressive dementia that affects specific parts of the brain – the frontal and temporal lobes. FTD differs from Alzheimer Disease in that memory is usually preserved early in the disease. Since the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain can be affected in different ways, early symptoms are often seen in profound changes in behaviour, personality and/or in speech.
Changes in behaviour include:
Becoming withdrawn or disinhibited (e.g. speaking rudely)
Loss of interest in personal hygiene
Becoming easily distracted
Overeating or compulsively putting objects in mouth
Early incontinence
Problems with Speech can include:
Reduction of speech
Echoing what has been said by others
Stuttering
Difficulty sustaining a train of thought
Problems with reading or writing
There are a variety of diseases that cause FTD, including:
Pick's Disease
In Pick’s, brain cells in the frontal and temporal lobes grow larger and contain within them, round, silver “Pick’s bodies”. Pick’s disease can affect both men and women and most commonly affects individuals in the 50’s and 60’s. The average duration of the disease is 7-8 years.
Frontal Dysexecutive Syndrome
This syndrome is characterized by behavioural changes. Some common symptoms include: social disinhibition, aggression or apathy, and changes in eating and/or sexual behaviour.
Progressive Nonfluent Aphasia
Is characterized by profound difficulty with speech production. Early on, reading, writing and comprehension skills may seem unaffected while speaking difficulties become more apparent. As the disease progresses, the affected
individual will become mute.
Semantic Dementia
Progressive damage occurs primarily in the temporal lobes and affects both verbal and visual semantic memory. Verbal semantic memory refers to memory for the meaning of words and visual semantic memory is our memory for the meaning of objects that we see. Individuals may be able to speak fluently but words may be empty of meaning and individual will have extreme difficulty understanding.
For more information on Frontotemporal Dementia, please contact your local Alzheimer Society or visit the following websites:
The Association for Frontotemporal Dementia
www.ftd-picks.org
Pick's Disease Web Site
dementia.ion.ucl.ac.uk/candid
The information contained on this website is not intended to replace clinical diagnosis by a health professional.
SOURCE: Research - Related Dementia-Pick's Disease - Alzheimer Society of Canada
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