Comparison of neuropsychological functioning in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia

Compared the archival neuropsychological data of 15 frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients (mean age 63.9 yrs), 16 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients (mean age 70.3 yrs), 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. Patient groups differed only in nonverbal memory, with FTD patients performing significantly better than AD patients. 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. 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 vs AD