Comprehensive Clinical Evaluations of Frontotemporal Dementia Contrasting to Alzheimer's Disease (oFTD Study)

To examine comprehensive clinical evaluations of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients compared with Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.

We used eight batteries and the touch panel test to retrospectively analyze 41 FTD patients compared with 121 AD patients. Furthermore, 34 FTD and all 121 AD patients were evaluated with a frontotemporal dementia-Alzheimer's disease index (FA index), which we developed for novel diagnosis with magnetic resonance imaging.

Frontal assessment battery, geriatric depression scale, and Abe's behavioral and psychological symptom of dementia score were significantly worse in FTD patients than in AD patients ( **p <  0.01 in FAB,  **p <  0.01 in the geriatric depression scale, and  ***p <  0.001 in Abe's behavioral and psychological symptom of dementia score), although there was no significant difference in the other five scores. The finding mistakes game score of the touch panel test was worse in FTD than in AD ( *p <  0.05). The receiver operating characteristic curve of the FA index showed 91.4% sensitivity and 89.3% specificity with the FA index ≤0.6015 to discriminate FTD from AD.

Combining clinical scores, a computerized touch panel test, and the FA index will help to provide a more accurate diagnosis of FTD in contrast to AD.