Frontotemporal dementia to Alzheimer's disease

Behavioral manifestations may dominate the clinical picture of the frontal variant of frontotemporal dementia (fv-FTD) for a long time before the appearance of true cognitive deficits. On the other hand, a deficit in the episodic memory domain represents the main manifestation of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Many behavioral disorders have been described in the clinical course of both FTD and AD; however, apathy and personality changes characterize frontal dementias, while depression dominates in AD, at least in the earlier stages. Depending on the distribution of neural damage, different patterns of noncognitive manifestations may be expected in different subtypes of FTD. Recent research on the social cognition deficit in FTD has offered new insights into the relationship between cognition and behavior, suggesting that some aspects of the behavioral changes in dementia may be generated by impairment in this domain.