Case Report


Frontotemporal dementia: From the clinic to the differential diagnosis

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1 Medical student at Iguaçu University, Iguaçu University - UNIG/RJ, Nova Iguaçu - RJ, Brazil

2 Physician, Neurologist, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Universidade Iguaçu, Iguaçu University - UNIG/Nova Iguaçu, RJ, Brazil

3 Assistant Physician at the Nuclear Medicine Service at Clínica Felippe Mattoso/Hospital Samaritano Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro - RJ, Brazil

4 Professor of Neurology - Universidade Iguaçu - UNIG - RJ, Nova Iguaçu - RJ, Brazil; Physician of the Neurology Service of Nova Iguaçu General Hospital, Nova Iguaçu, RJ, Brazil

5 Department of Neurology of Hospital Geral de Nova Iguaçu, PhD student in Neurology at the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO, Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Iguaçu University - UNIG/Nova Iguaçu, RJ, Brazil

Address correspondence to:

Antonio Marcos da Silva Catharino

Rua Gavião Peixoto 70, Sala 811, CEP 24.2230-100, Icaraí, Niterói - RJ,

Brazil

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Article ID: 101377Z01DP2023

doi: 10.5348/101377Z01DP2023CR

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How to cite this article

Pereira DA, Dantas SAB, Neves MAO, Pinto EG, Martins Jr GC, da Silva Catharino AM. Frontotemporal dementia: From the clinic to the differential diagnosis. Int J Case Rep Images 2023;14(1):28–32.

ABSTRACT


Introduction: Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a disease that encompasses several syndromes that differ in their cognitive, behavioral, language signs, and motor phenomena. Only Alzheimer’s disease causes more early-onset dementia cases than FTD. According to World Health Organization (WHO) projections, dementia rates will double every 20 years and reach 115.4 million people in 2050, ranging from 3% to 26%. The FTD spectrum encompasses three variant syndromes, namely the behavioral variant, the semantic variant, and the non-fluent/agrammatical variant. Frontotemporal lobar degeneration is neuropathologically related to the clinical phenotypes of FTD. Therefore, the frontal and temporal lobes suffer from gliosis and selective neuronal loss due to this neurodegenerative condition.

Case Report: A 62-year-old doctor with no comorbidities. According to the family, he reports delivering very slowly, which he doesn’t and comes in the processing very efficiently. He claims that he already lost on the street but managed to restore his visuospatial function. He denies changes in his daily life to recent trauma. Neurological examination revealed impaired attention and behavioral changes, impaired short-term memory (mini-mental: 19/30 points), normal laboratory, regular liquor; skull magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed mild atrophy in the frontotemporal regions. Decreased activity in areas of the cortex was observed by cerebral perfusion scintigraphy.

Conclusion: Therefore, this report is relevant because it correlates a patient with neurological examination and tests with a good indication of FTD; however, the diagnosis can be confirmed with greater accuracy through brain perfusion scintigraphy. It is still possible to observe that although there has been a significant increase in the literature on FTD, its variants and its clinic still need further studies regarding their possible differential diagnoses, mainly related to psychiatric disorders and the behavioral variant of FTD.

Keywords: Behavior, Cognitive dysfunction, Frontotemporal dementia

SUPPORTING INFORMATION


Author Contributions

Daniel Antunes Pereira - Acquisition of data, Analysis of data, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published

Shara Aline Bueno Dantas - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published

Marco Antônio Orsini Neves - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Acquisition of data, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Revising it critically for important intellectual content, Final approval of the version to be published

Everton Gonçalves Pinto - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Acquisition of data, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Final approval of the version to be published

Gilberto Canedo Martins Jr - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Final approval of the version to be published

Antonio Marcos da Silva Catharino - Substantial contributions to conception and design, Interpretation of data, Drafting the article, Final approval of the version to be published

Guarantor of Submission

The corresponding author is the guarantor of submission.

Source of Support

None

Consent Statement

Written informed consent was obtained from the patient for publication of this article.

Data Availability

All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files.

Conflict of Interest

Authors declare no conflict of interest.

Copyright

© 2023 Daniel Antunes Pereira et al. This article is distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original author(s) and original publisher are properly credited. Please see the copyright policy on the journal website for more information.