Objective: Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a heterogenous non-Alzheimer’s disease dementia complex. Due to the variable clinical presentation, we assume a vast range of symptoms and clinical overlap with other psychiatric diseases.
Design: We carried out a prospective nationwide hospital based clinical study in old age psychiatry to estimate the admission circumstances and the prevalence of patients with FTLD.
Methods: The clinical data have been documented by a specially designed questionnaire that included the diagnostic criteria according to Neary et al. (1998), the Frontal Behavioural Inventory (Kertesz et al. 1997) and structural/functional brain imaging results.
Results: Initially, during a four week period 33 patients with clinical FTLD have been ascertained in 36 psychiatric state hospitals in Germany with a total catchment area of >20,000,000 people [mean age: 63.9 (median=64) years (range 50-76). 48.5% female patients]. By means of continuous assessment, the number of patients with FTLD has been extended to n=62 up to now. The relative portion of FTLD patients within the primary dementia population accounted to 1.9%. The admission circumstances of the first 33 patients were mainly behavioural disturbances (54.5%), unclear syndromes of dementia (18.1%) and further remarkably heterogeneous psychiatric syndromes. Here we report the specific circumstances that lead to their admission in old psychiatry services. Our results indicate that FTLD is a common cause of dementia in old age psychiatry with a variable clinical presentation that could mimic most of the major psychiatric diseases. Patients with FTLD may be older than previously assumed (mean age at admission 63.9 years) and showed their maximum between 60 and 70 years.
Back to S035 Fronto-temporal Dementia and Dementia with Lewy Bodies: Clinical and Scientific Challenges
Back to The Eleventh International Congress