Dear Christine,

I don't know how you can interact with patients, but at least you can infer it through a detailed description of the FTD cognitive and behavioral symptoms during the various stages of the illness. The review you can find this information is the: M.Harciarek and K.Jodzio review about Neuropsychological differences between FTD and AD, 2005 , Neuropsychology Review (see attachment)

Good luck

Best,

Marianna

Dear Christine, Sorry for the late reply to your post from last year. I would suggest it is not so much about what sort of dementia, or for that matter what stage (although that can be a guide). The focus should be on what symptoms are present for the person at that time (as these can change hourly, daily, over time etc). The type of interaction is more dependant on things like their degree of memory loss, and most importantly their level of insight. In FTD, loss of insight in the early stages is common. Communication needs to tailored around level of insight, their comprehension, their mental state (ie psychiatric issues) and the context of the interaction. Because of all of the individual variables involved I doubt whether anyone could come up with a stepwise progression table - but if I were to attempt it I would definately have their level of insight and cognitive profile as my guide. As for what you can do when you are interacting with any dementia patient - a compassionate person-centred approach is a must, with extra attention paid to non-verbals. If it is behaviour management that is the issue, the focus of interevention is typically with the carer/family rather than the paitent themselves if memory loss and impaired insight are present. All the best, Alison Argo Older Person Mental Health, Ipswich Australia

Dear Christine, I also apologize for the delay in the answer, I try to get this post more actualized.

I recommend you two tests:

- (KERTESZ, A.; DAVIDSON, W.; FOX, H. (1997). "Frontal Behavioral Inventory: Diagnostic criteria for Frontal Lobe Dementia". Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, 24: 29-36).

and for primary progressive aphasias:

- Progressive Aphasia Severity Scale (PASS). Cortical neuroanatomic correlates of symptom severity in primary progressive aphasia. Sapolsky D, Bakkour A, Negreira A, Nalipinski P, Weintraub S, Mesulam MM, Caplan D, Dickerson BC.

I hope it is useful to you.

Marc.