Frontotemporal Dementia is probably one of the leading causes of younger onset dementia. Patients being affected from their 30s to their 60s – and beyond. Frontotemporal Dementia is very interesting, it definitely represents a progressive degenerative disease of the brain and clinically it presents in sort of two broad fashions – one affecting language, such that patients can’t speak fluently or get their point across, or have problems in remembering the meaning of words.
The other common pattern in Frontotemporal Dementia is what we call behavioural variant, and this is where someone’s behaviour changes. They become less inhibited or more disinhibited, so they make rash decisions. They may sign up and submit to those emails that we mostly ignore online. They are taken in by a scam because they can’t perceive what’s going on. The condition is generally progressive. Unfortunately we don’t have a cure for it, but we do have some insights from some of the recent genetic studies that are coming out.