Howdy. The ugly indecisive monster of diagnosis is rearing it's head! The neuropsych told us mil probably had ftd but now they are leaning towards frontal-variant ad (FvAD) I believe because she has episodic memory impairment. Otherwise all her syptoms and behaviours are conducive to frontotemporal dementia.

I was wondering if any others have been diagnosed with this form of AD and would share some insight.

Thanks in advance!
Missy

Missy: So sorry. My understanding is that it is AD, BUT the area of the brain under assault is the Frontal Lobe. Sometimes there is also impact upon the Temporal Lobes.

It is my further understanding, that this disease will take the course of FTD, but with more memory impact. In a true FTD, memory stays pretty much stable with much less loss than with AD.

This is a difficult diagnosis as with a Frontal or FTD, it's all about behaviors, and it continues to worsen over time.

It is good to have a diagnosis, at least now you know what "country" you are in and can research and get the "rules of the road and laws of the land", so to speak.

You may want to ask if Aricept and other like meds are contraindicated in the FvAD as they are in FTD. My guess is, probably so. It can cause exacerbation of their behaviors.

If you Google the AFTD site, you will get a lot of information.

I wish you the best,

Thank you so much Johanna. You're such a kind heart. You always post such helpful info to everybody's questions.

I've done a ton of googling on it...most of the information is in research form. Not much practical "how to" information.

Blessings to you,
Missy

Dear Missy: It IS frustrating not to find what we're looking for on research. Like you, I spent hours and hours going thru tons of literature only to find not much of anything. Most things I read were rather superficial.

The Neurologist named my mother's dementia as, FTD, Alzheimer's Variant. When I asked him about this, he stated that it essentially was FTD and would take the same course.

Psych and second Neuro who saw her at other times, termed it; FTD. However, I think that it is all heaped in the same bucket.

Do try the AFTD site which you can access thru Google, there is some stuff there. I also wrote an Abstract on FTD which you can access thru the Find button at the top of the page.

Sometimes speech becomes very involved early on with loss of ability, and some FTD patients develop an overwhelming need to eat constantly.

This has not been the case with my mother, and has not been so with the ten or so folks I have met whose loved ones have FTD.

Far later in the course of her disease which is similar to AD Stage 6; at the end of that Stage when she began to show glimmers that she was moving into Stage 7, is when Mom began to have swallow issues and her voice became very, very low and her words more sparse.

Believe it or not, here we are at Stage 7, and she is alert, mostly oriented, and most of her memory is intact. She has lost the ability for her trunk to hold her body upright and her arms/hands, while they can move, can no longer get the signal from her brain to perform useful activities such as using a spoon or a kleenex, etc.

While her behaviors were beyond dreadful thru all of Stage 6, which lasted longer than any other of the stages, she is now calm, content and free of discomfort. Thank God for that.

Risperdal, as a last resort, is what finally controlled the overwhelming and rabid delusions and her severely agitated behaviors. It wasn't perfect, but a WHOLE lot better for her. Now that she has entered Stage 7, she is totally calm and no more behavioral angst for her.

It is such a blessing to know she doesn't experience all the inner and outer turmoil she had. She'd be so far over the top with shouting and pounding and everything else in between that I would fear she'd have a stroke or heart attack. And of course, she had no quality of life with that.

Certainly, I sincerely wish blessings for the Neurologist who was able to assist her. In fact, I wrote him a thank you letter, letting him know what his care meant to my mother's quality of life.

I so wish you well, Missy. It IS a challenging journey, but it's amazing how we find ourselves rising to the occasion. You are such a dear and caring person, and I know you too are knowledge based; this will carry you through the rough patches.

Hugs,