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Amnesia in frontotemporal dementia: shedding light on the Geneva historical data

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Abstract

Recent accumulated evidence indicates that episodic memory impairments could be part of the initial clinical expression of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). An early study on this issue was carried out by Constantinidis and colleagues in 1974, but it was subsequently overlooked for a long period of time. The scope of the present research was: (a) to explore the presence of early episodic memory impairments in the entire population of neuropathologically confirmed FTD patients from the Geneva brain collection; and (b) to expand the present insight on the association between the initial symptomatology and various characteristics, namely gender, age at onset, disease duration, and presence of Pick body neuropathology. A careful review of the records of 50 FTD patients hospitalized at the Department of Psychiatry of the Bel-Air Hospital, Geneva, Switzerland, from 1929 to 1999, was conducted. Further in-depth neuropathological analysis with novel immunohistological methods was carried out in 37 of the cases. The data showed that memory impairments were the first clinical symptom in several of the patients. In addition, this specific phenotypic expression of FTD was associated with the female gender, advanced age, and positive Pick body neuropathology. The current findings give the opportunity to historically vindicate the early work of Constantinidis and colleagues. In addition, the novel observations about the association of episodic memory impairments with the female gender and positive Pick body neuropathology add to the existing knowledge about this phenotypic expression of FTD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Disorders/Dementia Unit, 2nd Department of Neurology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, “Attikon” University General Hospital, 1 Rimini Str, Haidari, 12462, Athens, Greece

    Sokratis G. Papageorgiou & Ion N. Beratis

  2. Department of Neurology, Geneva University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Judit Horvath

  3. Department of Internal Medicine, Rehabilitation and Geriatrics, Geneva University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland

    François R. Herrmann

  4. Unit of Biomarkers, Department of Mental Health and Psychiatry, Geneva University Hospitals and Faculty of Medicine, Geneva, Switzerland

    Constantin Bouras & Enikö Kövari

Authors
  1. Sokratis G. Papageorgiou
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  2. Ion N. Beratis
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  3. Judit Horvath
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  4. François R. Herrmann
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  5. Constantin Bouras
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  6. Enikö Kövari
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Correspondence to Sokratis G. Papageorgiou.

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On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

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The Ethical Committee of the University Hospitals of Geneva has approved this retrospective autopsy study.

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Papageorgiou, S.G., Beratis, I.N., Horvath, J. et al. Amnesia in frontotemporal dementia: shedding light on the Geneva historical data. J Neurol 263, 657–664 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-015-8019-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-015-8019-6

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