Journal
JOURNAL OF ALZHEIMERS DISEASE
Volume 53, Issue 3, Pages 1033-1042Publisher
IOS PRESS
DOI: 10.3233/JAD-160010
Keywords
Behavioral symptoms; empathy; frontotemporal dementia; longitudinal studies; primary progressive aphasia
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Funding
- National Health and Medical research Council of Australia program grant [1037746]
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders Memory Node [CE110001021]
- Institute Born-Bunge, University of Antwerp
- Sydney University postdoctoral fellowship [S0716/U2644]
- NHMRC [APP1022684]
- ARC Federation Fellowship [FF0776229]
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Background: Differentiating between primary progressive aphasia (PPA) variants based on the profile of language deficits can be difficult in a proportion of patients. Further, little is presently know about the pattern of longitudinal changes in behavior in PPA variants. Objective: To determine the presence of behavioral changes in the main variants of PPA: semantic (sv-PPA), nonfluent/agrammatic (nfv-PPA), and logopenic (lv-PPA), and establish the course of these changes over time. Methods: We measured behavioral changes in 73 prospectively recruited PPA (30 sv-PPA, 22 nfv-PPA, and 21 lv-PPA), as well as 33 behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bv-FTD) and 31 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, at baseline and after 1 year, using the Cambridge Behavioural Inventory Revised. All included patients had mild dementia severity at baseline. Results: Both at baseline and follow-up, sv-PPAexhibited significantly more behavioral disturbances of the type characteristic of bv-FTD compared with other PPA variants. 74% of sv-PPA patients with mild dementia severity exhibited at least one behavior disturbance at baseline, which increased to 84% during follow-up. Behavioral symptoms did not differ between nfv-PPA and lv-PPA groups at baseline. At follow-up, however, empathy loss was significantly more pronounced in nfv-PPA. The prevalence and course of behavioral symptoms in lv-PPA was similar to that found in AD. Conclusions: sv-PPA show more prominent FTD-like behavioral disturbances compared with other PPA variants which typically emerge already early in the disease course. Empathy loss may be an important factor that helps differentiating nfv-PPA from lv-PPA. Our results may allow improved prediction of likely progression in behavioral symptoms across the PPA variants.
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