Progress and Challenges in Frontotemporal Dementia Research: A 20-Year Review

The landscape of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) has evolved remarkably in recent years and is barely recognizable from two decades ago. Knowledge of the clinical phenomenology, cognition, neuroimaging, genetics, pathology of the different subtypes of FTD, and their relations to other neurodegenerative conditions, has increased rapidly, due in part, to the growing interests into these neurodegenerative brain conditions. This article reviews the major advances in the field of FTD over the past 20 years, focusing primarily on the work of Frontier, the frontotemporal dementia clinical research group, based in Sydney, Australia. Topics covered include clinical presentations (cognition, behavior, neuroimaging), pathology, genetics, and disease progression, as well as interventions and carer directed research. This review demonstrates the improvement in diagnostic accuracy and capacity to provide advice on genetic risks, prognosis, and outcome. The next major challenge will be to capitalize on these research findings to develop effective disease modifying drugs, which are currently lacking.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Journal of Alzheimer's Disease

• Publication date

  2018-02-28

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3233/JAD-171087PMID 29504536PMCID 5870022
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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