Table of Contents
How do you treat FTD?
There’s currently no cure or specific treatment for frontotemporal dementia. Drugs used to treat or slow Alzheimer’s disease don’t seem to be helpful for people with frontotemporal dementia, and some may worsen the symptoms of frontotemporal dementia.
Is frontotemporal dementia fatal?
FTD is not life-threatening ─ people may live with it for years. But it can lead to an increased risk for other illnesses that can be more serious. Pneumonia is the most common cause of death, with FTD. People are also at increased risk for infections and fall-related injuries.
What is Ftld?
Frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) is a clinically and pathologically heterogeneous syndrome, characterized by a progressive decline in behaviour or language associated with degeneration of the frontal and anterior temporal lobes.
What causes bvFTD?
The cause of bvFTD is unknown. Scientists know that in bvFTD there is a large build up of one of three kinds of protein within brain cells: tau, TDP-43 or fused-in sarcoma (FUS). These proteins occur normally, but we do not yet understand why they build up in large amounts.
How long do people live with bvFTD?
bvFTD is a disease that changes with time. A person with bvFTD can live many years with the disease. Research suggests that a person with bvFTD may live an average of six years with the disease, although this can vary from person to person.
Is FTLD genetic?
FTLD is a genetically complex disorder. It has a strong genetic basis and 50% of patients show a positive family history for FTLD. Linkage studies have revealed seven chromosomal loci and a number of genes including MAPT, PGRN, VCP, and CHMB-2B are associated with the disease.
How common is bvFTD?
Within the most relevant age range of 45 to 65 years, 10–30 in 100,000 people are estimated to be affected by FTLD (4, 7). Converging evidence then suggests that bvFTD is the second most frequent young-onset (<65 years old) cognitive neurodegenerative disorder following Alzheimer’s disease (AD) (4, 7, 8).
How is bvFTD diagnosed?
Brain imaging can be used to support the diagnosis, but at present there is no biomarker that can confirm a bvFTD diagnosis. Only autopsy can provide a definitive diagnosis of the disease based on confirming the underlying pathology found in the brain.
What are the stages of bvFTD?
In the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), this model describes the evolution of behavioral disturbances and is characterized by an inflection point between stage 2 (progressively severe behavioral aberration) and stage 3 (increasing apathy and remission of behavior problems).