[Neuropsychological assessment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]

Neuropsychological assessment in the ALS population is relatively recent probably because this disease was traditionally considered to spare cognitive abilities. However, evidence is emerging from neuropsychological testing that some patients with classical ALS, who are thought not to be demented, develop cognitive deficits and particularly frontal executive disturbances. Neuroimaging gives support to frontal lobe involvement in ALS. Nevertheless, cognitive impairment does not concern all ALS patients and appears to be mild when it is described compared with rather severe frontotemporal dementia observed in association with ALS. Most of the references in this work question the cognitive perspective in the ALS population but few of them can provide a real useful tool for cognitive investigation in this disease.