Frontotemporalinės demencijos klinikinių subtipų diferencinė diagnostika: apžvalga ir klinikiniai atvejai.

Introduction. Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a heterogenous disease with the main feature of frontotemporal lobular degeneration. This disorder is divided into smaller subtypes that barely have anything in common apart from the simmilar brain lesion. In order to clarify the difficult diagnostics of FTD we enrolled a detailed article search on the subject. To illustrate the information found we present 3 clinical cases that each represents each subtype of FTD. In 80% of cases of the behavioural subtype of FTD these symptoms can be found: disinhibition, apathy, and lack of empathy. Other symptoms mentioned in the International consortium diagnostic criteria are common in 50% of cases. Semantic subtype can be characterized with: the difficulty in finding the right word, incomprehension of words, superficial dyslexia, and prosopagnosia. While non-fluent progressive aphasia can be diagnosed from these symptoms: agrammatical speech, difficulty in repeating words, and orobucal apraxia. Patients in suspect of FTD must undergo a detailed neuropsycological evaluation and have some radiological examination done. All patients must do an MRI of the brain which would display the degeneration process. If MRI does not show any significant changes in the brain yet sever clinical features are present, a PET scan should be considered. Only radiological testing without the neuropsycological evaluaiion is absoiutely not valid as symp-oms must correiate with the results of a MRI scan or any other radiological test. Conclusion. Our clinical cases clearly represent that each subtype has some features of another subtype. If the differentiation is too difficult, a mixed FTD diagnosis should be considered. The differential diagnostics of FTD subtypes might be useful in the future if a treatment for this disorder appears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]