Pachana N A, Boone K B, Miller B L, Cummings J L, Berman N
Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine 90024, USA.
J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 1996 Nov;2(6):505-10. doi: 10.1017/s1355617700001673.
Neuropsychological changes distinguishing mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) from frontotemporal dementia (FTD) have been described, but empirical verification of differential cognitive characteristics is lacking. Archival neuropsychological data on 15 FTD patients, 16 AD patients, and 16 controls were compared. Controls outperformed both patient groups on measures of verbal and nonverbal memory, executive ability, and constructional skill, with AD patients showing more widespread memory decline. No differences were found between the 3 groups in confrontation naming, recognition memory, or basic attention. Patient groups differed only in nonverbal memory, with FTD patients performing significantly better than AD patients. However, patient groups also differed in pattern of performance across executive and memory domains. Specifically, AD patients exhibited significantly greater impairment on memory than executive tasks, whereas the opposite pattern characterized the FTD group. These findings suggest that examination of relative rankings of scores across cognitive domains, in addition to interpretation of individual neuropsychological scores, may be useful in differential diagnosis of FTD versus AD.
区分轻度阿尔茨海默病（AD）与额颞叶痴呆（FTD）的神经心理学变化已有描述，但缺乏对认知特征差异的实证验证。对15例FTD患者、16例AD患者和16名对照者的档案神经心理学数据进行了比较。在言语和非言语记忆、执行能力和构建技能方面，对照组的表现均优于两组患者，AD患者表现出更广泛的记忆衰退。三组在对答命名、识别记忆或基本注意力方面未发现差异。患者组仅在非言语记忆方面存在差异，FTD患者的表现明显优于AD患者。然而，患者组在执行和记忆领域的表现模式也存在差异。具体而言，AD患者在记忆方面的损害明显大于执行任务，而FTD组则呈现相反的模式。这些发现表明，除了对个体神经心理学分数进行解释外，检查认知领域分数的相对排名可能有助于FTD与AD的鉴别诊断。
