DEMENTIA

• Frontotemporal dementia is an umbrella term for any disease that causes gradual loss of brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes the front and sides of the brain.
• Although relatively rare, it is one of the most common causes of dementia in people under the age of 65, accounting for around 40 per cent of early-onset cases.
• The condition which goes by other names, such as Pick’s disease, frontal dementia, semantic dementia and primary progressive aphasia tends to develop slowly, over several years.
• A build-up of abnormal proteins affects critical brain areas, leading to changes in behaviour, personality and speech.
• Unlike other forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, memory is often only affected later in the disease’s progression

• The earliest signs of the behavioural variant include changes in how a person acts, particularly in social situations
• They may become tactless or make rash decisions. Or they may behave inappropriately, for example, by making sexual advances
• Some may develop obsessive ritualistic behaviour, or lose all sense of empathy and caring.
• These symptoms reflect damage to the frontal lobes, an area of the brain involved in directing our behaviour, controlling our impulses, managing our emotions and generating speech and movement
• When they stop working, people tend to lack insight into their own behaviour or how they have changed
• Their relatives find it particularly hard because they can’t have frank conversations with their loved ones as they can’t see what the problem is
• Diagnosis can be difficult because these symptoms also occur in other conditions where the frontal lobes are injured, such as strokes and tumours, so a full medical history and brain scans play an important role
• To make things even more tricky for doctors, there is also significant overlap with several psychiatric disorders 
• Example: depression, schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
• As the disease progresses, brain cells across the frontal and temporal lobes are destroyed. And, regardless of the variant, people will eventually experience many of the symptoms above
• This is accompanied by increasing difficulty with walking and moving. By the end, most struggle to eat and swallow
• Frontotemporal dementia is a devastating and life-changing disease for which we have no cure and little in the way of treatment
• For now, the focus is on managing symptoms and maximising quality of life. This may involve helping people develop ways to manage their emotions and behaviour, or drugs such as antidepressants and antipsychotics