Similarities and Differences (from “ What if it's not Alzheimer's - A caregiver's guide to dementia “- Lisa Radin and Gary Radin)
Features
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FTD
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AD
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Age at which disease generally occurs |
- Common between 40 and 70 years
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Brain areas affected |
- Frontal and Temporal lobes
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- Starts in the medial temporal area, usually in the hippocampus
- spreads to the other areas of the brain
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Pathologic features |
- loss of nerve cells
- no amyloid plaques
- tau protein tangles seen in certain FTD, but different from AD tangles
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- loss of nerve cells
- amyloid plaques
- tau tangles
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Clinical features |
- varying personality and behaviour changes, from apathy to hyperactivity
- loss of empathy toward others; lack of proper social conduct
- memory is preserved early on
- language difficulty
- compulsive eating and oral fixations
- repetitive actions
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- begins with memory loss
- loss of ability to learn new information
- inability to orient oneself to time and place
- later, personality and behaviour problems develop
- possible hallucinations and delusions in later stage
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