Frontotemporal dementia: clinical, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging description

OBJECTIVE: Describe the relationships between the clinical, neuropsychological, and imaging findings from a group of patients diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD). METHODS: The clinical histories, cognitive tests, and structural and perfusion brain images of 21 patients of the Psychiatric Hospital Universitario del Valle, Cali, Colombia, were reviewed. RESULTS: The average age was 59.8 years; the average time for the evolution of disease symptoms was 2.7 years; the most common variant was the behavioral variant; the most common alteration shown through nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) was frontotemporal atrophy, while the most common alteration shown through single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) was frontotemporal hypoperfusion. The most significant result was the normal performance of 61.9% of patients in praxis exams, which was associated with alterations in temporoparietal perfusion in the SPECT images (p <0.02). Neither the mini-mental state evaluation nor the Clock Drawing Executive Test (CLOX) served as screening tests.