Frontotemporal Dementia

Overview

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a heterogeneous clinical syndrome caused by non-Alzheimertype progressive degeneration of the frontal and/or temporal brain lobes. It represents about10% of all dementias, most frequently developing in the age between 45 and 65 and lasting onaverage eight years from the first symptoms to death. It is characterised by distinct alterationof personality and social behaviour and/or speech disorder, affecting of executive functions,change of dining habits and other symptoms. Spatial orientation and day-to-day memory remainrelatively preserved up to the advanced stages of the disease. FTD represents a clinicallyheterogeneous group of conditions with its clinical picture corresponding to the affectedbrain area. The most frequent types are dementia of frontal type, semantic dementia andprogressive non-fluent aphasia. Other syndromologic units are rare. Sometimes there are onlyfocal changes with defined clinical picture, however, in most cases generalised changes andclinical symptoms occur, sometimes leading to the clinical picture of fully developed dementia.FTD is clinically diagnosed on the basis of the clinical picture and imaging examination methodfindings; a pathologists sets the ultimate diagnosis. The histopathological finding is usuallynon-specific or including the finding of Pick cells and Pick bodies. No specific therapy of FTDis known; the serotonin reuptake inhibitors may cause reduction of behavioural disorders. Thecholinesterase inhibitors are not indicated, in some cases they may even lead to deteriorationof the behaviour.The work summarizes the current knowledge about FTD and uses the clinical experience of theauthor

Key words:
Frontotemporal dementia, Pick’s disease, dementia of frontal type, semanticdementia, progressive non-fluent aphasia.