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What is Frontotemporal Dementia?
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and other focal dementias are an important
group of brain disorders that result in behavioral, cognitive, or language
changes. Although far less is known about FTD than about Alzheimer’s
disease (AD), research during the last ten years has greatly increased
our understanding of these disorders. Researchers at UCLA and elsewhere
continue to make new discoveries about FTD, formerly known as Pick’s
disease, and other brain-behavior syndromes.
| Symptoms of FTD (Pick’s Disease) |
| Changes in personality |
| Lack of interest for usual activities or
family and friends |
| Socially embarrassing behavior |
| Unusual compulsive or rigid behavior |
| Unusual eating behavior |
| Difficulty with speaking or finding or understanding
words |
| Apathy |
| Emotional disengagement |
| Social disinhibition (e.g. talking to or
touching strangers in public) |
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How is FTD Different from Alzheimer’s Disease?
Although FTD and AD present with different symptoms, both are likely
to affect reason and other forms of cognition. There are many substantial
differences that exist between these disorders, however. While AD is
most
common in persons over the age of 65 (and increasing in likelihood as
individuals get older), FTD occurs most
frequently in persons under the age of 65 and
is rare among persons over 75. As discussed, the symptoms of FTD differ
from typical memory impairments of AD. Not surprisingly, these changes
in cognition and behavior are brought about by pathological changes in
the brain that are also quite different from those of AD. Whereas AD
involves the deposition of plaques and tangles and the eventual loss
of the much
of the cerebral cortex, FTD seems to be caused by more focal changes
in specific brain regions, as a result of alternate protein changes.
Instead
of plaques and tangles, FTD brains show the deposit of Pick bodies and
balloon neurons. These inclusions occur mostly in the frontal and temporal
(side) parts of the brain, and some patients will experience very focal
changes in these regions. For example, patients experience focal losses
on the left side of the brain, where the regions that control language
abilities are found. Other patients experience more frontal changes,
resulting in social behavior symptoms such as unusual speaking to or
touching strangers.
The FTD&Neurobehavior Clinic at UCLA [linked] is focused on better
understanding these and other changes in patients, as well as developing
new treatments for this category of dementia.
Other Focal Neurobehavioral Disorders
Primary Progressive Aphasia and Semantic Dementia- speaking and word finding
problems
Posterior Cortical Atrophy- seeing and reading problems
Corticobasal Degeneration and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy- Problems
with movement or motor coordination of arms or eyes
Other progressive problems with cognition, reading, writing, spatial abilities,
reasoning, judgment or mathematics
How Do I Get an Appointment to
the UCLA FTD&Neurobehavior Clinic?
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