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Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana

On-line version ISSN 2075-9479

Abstract

GOMEZ, Pablo Guillermo; RUBINSTEIN, Wanda Yanina  and  POLITIS, Daniel Gustavo. Motor production deficit and severity of dementia in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia. Neuropsicologia Latinoamericana [online]. 2014, vol.6, n.1, pp. 1-12. ISSN 2075-9479.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5579/rnl.2013.0158.

The aim of this study is assess apraxia in patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (FTDbv), and study the relationship between apraxia and severity of dementia in both types of patients. We evaluated 82 patients with dementia: 50 patients with AD and 32 patients with bvFTD. Both groups of patients were evaluated with the apraxia cognitive assessment battery, the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the scale of Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR). 90% of patients with AD and 69% of the bvFTD group showed apraxia, and impairment in output praxicon was the most frequent deficit. In both groups, with increasing severity of dementia, patients had greater difficulties at the input praxicon, the action semantics system and the non-lexical route. With increasing severity of dementia, the AD group also showed more frequently deficit in output praxicon. At CDR=0.5 level, patients with AD showed marked alterations in the non-lexical route (Chi-square=4.590, df=1, p=0.032) compared to the bvFTD group. Alterations in the input praxicon, the action semantics system and the non-lexical route can be used as measures of the severity of dementia. The deficit in imitation of unfamiliar gestures could contribute to the differential diagnosis between AD and bvFTD. These results reinforce the importance of apraxia assessment in both pathologies.

Keywords : Neuropsychology; Apraxia; Alzheimer disease; Frontotemporal dementia; Imitation.

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