Frontotemporal Dementia

As if Dementia is not confusing enough for the sound of mind, it is also a horrific diagnosis, and often takes months or years to pinpoint the type of Dementia a person has. Someone once explained to me that I should think of Dementia as the “umbrella,” disease, like cancer.

There are many types of cancer, as are there many types of Dementia and varying degrees in which every individual person is afflicted. Today’s focus is on Frontotemporal Dementia, and the different types.

Behavior Variant Frontotemporal Dementia or bvFTD

1. Occurs most often in people in their 50’s and 60’s but can be develop into a person’s 80’s or as early as their 20’s.
2. As suggested by the name, a person’s behavior and personality changes, and is often the first sign that something is wrong.
3. In bvFTD the nerve cell loss that controls judgement, conduct, foresight, and empathy is most prominently damaged.

Primary Progressive Aphasia or PPA

1. This type of Dementia is the second most common form of frontotemporal degeneration.
2. PPA is most prevalent in midlife prior to the age of 65 but an also occur in later years.
3. This type of frontotemporal degeneration effects the language cortex, comprehension, writing and speaking.
4. There are two distinctive forms of PPA with slightly different symptoms. Individuals lose the ability to comprehend or formulate words or sentences with Semantic Variant PPA or svPPA. Those with Nonfluent/Agrammatic Variant PPA are very hesitant when speaking, not grammatically correct, and labored.

Disturbances of A Person’s Motor Skills

Also associated with frontotemporal degeneration, with or without changes in behavior (bvFTD,) or (PPA,) problems with language are as follows:

1. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS, causing muscle weakness, or atrophy. ALS is often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, a motor neuron disease.
2. Corticobasal Syndrome, much less known, causes a person’s extremities to be still or uncoordinated.
3. Progressive Supranuclear Palsy or PSP effects a person’s posture, eye movements, muscle stiffness and makes walking difficult.

Whereas Alzheimer’s disease is far more common in people over 65, both Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD,) and Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA,) are just as common as early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Primary differences between the Frontotemporal Dementia and Alzheimer’s:

1. Age. FTD effects most people between the ages of 40-60 whereas Alzheimer’s grows more common with age.
2. Memory loss is more prominent in early onset Alzheimer’s than FTD.
3. People with FTD first display noticeable changes in behavior, with Alzheimer’s behavior changes occur in the late stages of the disease.
4. Spatial orientation, getting lost, are more common in Alzheimer’s than FTD.
5. Problems with speech, reading and understanding when others speak is much more common in people with FTD.
6. Hallucinations and delusions not typically associated with FTD however are very common in those with Alzheimer’s as the disease progresses.