The neuropsychological profile of Alzheimer disease.

Neuropsychological assessment has featured prominently over the past 30 years in the characterization of dementia associated with Alzheimer disease (AD). Clinical neuropsychological methods have identified the earliest, most definitive cognitive and behavioral symptoms of illness, contributing to the identification, staging, and tracking of disease. With increasing public awareness of dementia, disease detection has moved to earlier stages of illness, at a time when deficits are both behaviorally and pathologically selective.

The mini-mental state examination in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and primary progressive aphasia.

There is little information regarding the usefulness of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) for tracking progression of non-Alzheimer's disease dementias. This study examined the utility of the MMSE in capturing disease severity in the behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and primary progressive aphasia (PPA), 2 nonamnestic clinical dementia syndromes. Retrospective data from 41 bvFTD and 30 PPA patients were analyzed.

Rate of cognitive change measured by neuropsychologic test performance in 3 distinct dementia syndromes.

Progressive decline in cognition is a hallmark feature of dementia, and the rate and profile of cognitive decline has been well characterized in Alzheimer disease (AD). Less is known about decline in cognition over time in other forms of dementia such as the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and primary progressive aphasia (PPA). The present study examined rate of cognitive decline across domains of memory, language, and executive function measured by neuropsychologic tests, in AD (n=84), FTD (n=66), and PPA (n=44).

Profiles of decline in activities of daily living in non-Alzheimer dementia.

Assessment of functional ability is an essential component in the clinical diagnosis of dementia. Most studies have primarily focused on disability due to Alzheimer disease (AD), and less is known about profiles of functional impairment in other dementia syndromes. Functional ability was assessed in individuals in the early stages of AD (N=100), the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) (N=57), and primary progressive aphasia (PPA) (N=61), using the activities of daily living questionnaire (Johnson et al, 2004).

Word list versus story memory in Alzheimer disease and frontotemporal dementia.

Memory impairment, characterized by a pattern of rapid forgetting, is the hallmark deficit in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Memory deficits have also been reported in frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and are thought to reflect diminished organizational and attentional abilities leading to a pattern of decreased acquisition of new information. The present study compared patients with AD, the behavioral variant of FTD, and cognitively intact elderly control subjects on two types of memory tests: story memory and word list recall.

Preservation of reasoning in primary progressive aphasia: further differentiation from Alzheimer's disease and the behavioral presentation of frontotemporal dementia.

Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a clinical dementia syndrome characterized by the gradual dissolution of language without impairment of other cognitive domains for at least the first 2 years of illness (M.-M. Mesulam, 1982, 2001).