Dementia & Neuropsychologia ()

Functional profile of patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) compared to patients with Alzheimer's disease and normal controls

  • Thais Bento Lima-Silva,
  • Valéria Santoro Bahia,
  • Viviane Amaral Carvalho,
  • Henrique Cerqueira Guimarães,
  • Paulo Caramelli,
  • Márcio Balthazar,
  • Benito Damasceno,
  • Cássio Machado de Campos Bottino,
  • Sônia Maria Dozzi Brucki,
  • Ricardo Nitrini,
  • Mônica Sanches Yassuda

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1590/S1980-57642013DN70100015
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 96 – 103

Abstract

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ABSTRACT There are few studies describing the functional changes in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and it is not clear which aspects of functionality are affected by the disease. Objective: The aim of the present investigation was to characterize the functional profile of patients previously diagnosed with bvFTD. Methods: The sample consisted of 31 patients diagnosed with bvFTD, who were compared to patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) (n=31) and to healthy control subjects (NC) (n=34), matched for schooling and age. bvFTD and AD patients were matched by severity of dementia. The protocol included the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), Direct Assessment of Functional Status (DAFS-BR), Functional Activities Questionnaire (PFAQ), Disability Assessment for Dementia (DAD) and the Clinical Dementia Rating scale (CDR). Results: The group with bvFTD showed worse performance on Initiation and Planning/Organization in the DAD and on ability to feed oneself in the DAFS-BR, as well as higher scores on the PFAQ, suggesting greater dependence in the bvFTD group. Conclusion: The results suggest that individuals with bvFTD display greater functional impairment compared to AD patients with a similar degree of dementia severity and to healthy controls. Direct assessment of functionality proved unable to clearly differentiate between the dementia subtypes.

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