Neuropsychiatric symptoms in primary progressive aphasia and apraxia of speech

To conduct a prospective analysis of the neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) across the three categories of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and progressive apraxia of speech (PAOS), compare the prevalence and nature of the symptoms, and look at which symptoms could be helpful to better differentiate these PPA and PAOS categories.

A total of 106 consecutive patients with a diagnosis of semantic variant (n = 13), logopenic variant (n = 37), agrammatic variant (n = 15) or PAOS (n = 41) were included in this prospective study. The NPS were measured by the Neuropsychiatric Inventory Questionnaire.

There were 65 patients with PPA and 41 with PAOS diagnosis. The most distinguishing features between the two groups were anxiety, apathy, aberrant motor behavior and appetite, while among the subtypes of PPA they were disinhibition and appetite changes. PPA and PAOS patients initially exhibited depression, but with increased disease duration, PAOS patients showed apathy (55.5%) while PPA patients showed disinhibition (28.6%) and aberrant motor behavior (14.3%).

Mood symptoms like anxiety and appetite changes are more likely to be present at initial stages of PPA, whereas behavioral symptoms like aberrant motor behavior and apathy are likely to occur early in PAOS. The NPS seem to evolve with the progression of the disease in both PPA and PAOS.