UCLA

Introduction

Behavior/Comportment/Personality (BEHAV) and Language (LANG) domains were added to the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR®) for improving evaluation of patients with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) (CDR® plus NACC FTLD).

Methods

We analyzed the CDR® plus NACC FTLD among participants from the baseline visit of the Advancing Research and Treatment for Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration/Longitudinal Evaluation of Familial Frontotemporal Dementia Subjects Consortium.

Results

The CDR® plus NACC FTLD was able to detect early symptoms in the mildly impaired participants who were rated as CDR® sum of boxes (CDR®-SB) = 0. The CDR®-SB was not sensitive, particularly in participants with mild nonfluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia. Participants with familial and sporadic behavioral variant FTD exhibited similar CDR® plus NACC FTLD profiles except that language impairment was more frequent in participants with mild sporadic behavioral variant FTD. Adding the BEHAV and/or LANG domains to the CDR®-SB significantly enhanced discriminatory power in differentiating among the FTLD spectrum disorders.

Discussion

The BEHAV and LANG domains enable the CDR® plus NACC FTLD to capture early symptomatology of FTLD.