FIGURE 6-1. Neuropsychological profiles of early and late dementia.

X-axis represents domains tested in the neuropsychological examination. Y-axis represents level of impairment: mild, moderate or severe. Dementia syndromes include primary progressive aphasia, behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, and the so-called dementia of the Alzheimer type typified by early amnesia. Black bars represent levels of impairment across domains early in the course of illness, and white bars represent levels measured in later stages of illness. It is clear that in the earliest stages, dementia symptoms can remain highly focal. In the case of primary progressive aphasia, prominent language impairment represents left cerebral involvement; in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, prominent changes in comportment represent bilateral frontotemporal involvement. In dementia of the Alzheimer type, prominent early amnesia represents medial temporal dysfunction. Reprinted with permission from Weintraub S.4 © 2014 Oxford University Press.