ALZHEIMER’S ASSOCIATION: IOWA CHAPTER What is Frontotemporal Dementia? By Alzheimer’s Association Did you know Alzheimer’s disease and dementia are different? Dementia is a general term for symptoms like memory loss and decline in reasoning or other thinking skills, and Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia. Alzheimer’s accounts for about 80% of all dementia, but there are several other types of dementia that affect different parts of the brain and have different symptoms, like frontotemporal dementia. Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) or frontotemporal degeneration refers to a group of disorders caused by progressive nerve cell loss in the brain's frontal lobes (the areas behind your forehead) or its temporal lobes (the regions behind your ears). The nerve cell damage caused by FTD leads to loss of function in these brain regions, which can cause deterioration in behavior, personality and/or difficulty with producing or comprehending language. There are a number of different diseases that cause FTD. The two most prominent are 1) a group of brain disorders involving the protein tau and 2) a group of brain disorders involving the protein called TDP43. For reasons that are not yet known, these two groups prefer the frontal and temporal lobes that cause dementia. Frontotemporal dementia used to be called Pick's disease after Arnold Pick, M.D., a physician who in 1892 first described a patient with distinct symptoms affecting language. Some doctors still use the term "Pick's disease." Other terms you may see used to describe FTD include frontotemporal disorders, frontotemporal degeneration and frontal lobe disorders. THERE ARE THREE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FTD: Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, sometimes also called behavior variant FTD, is characterized by changes in personality and behavior that often occur in people in their 50s and 60s. In behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, the nerve cell loss is most prominent in areas that control conduct, judgment, empathy and foresight, among other abilities. Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is the second major form of frontotemporal degeneration that affects language skills, speaking, writing and comprehension. PPA normally comes on in midlife, before age 65, but can occur in late life also. Recently, former daytime talk show host Wendy Williams recently announced her diagnosis of PPA. The news of her diagnosis is devastating, but her transparency will also be meaningful for millions who are all too familiar with the crushing realities of all forms of dementia. Disturbances of motor (movement or muscle) function include three disorders that are a part of the frontotemporal degeneration spectrum that produce changes in muscle or motor functions with or without behavior or language problems: 15
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