Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia in a 23-year-old man

ABSTRACT

A 23-year-old man presented with behavioral disinhibition, stereotypies, motor apathy, flattened affect, and inappropriate laughter. CT demonstrated generalized cerebral atrophy. He was admitted with a diagnosis of unspecified psychosis and discharged on antipsychotic medication. He was readmitted 3 months later, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and antipsychotic medication was continued. Owing to symptom progression and aggressive behavior, he was readmitted 2 months later. CT again demonstrated moderate central and cortical cerebral atrophy. MRI showed severe, stable atrophy with frontotemporal predominance, and he was diagnosed with probable behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).  Over the next year he rapidly deteriorated, with loss of cognitive abilities. Genetic testing revealed several variants, none of which are clearly disease-causing.

KEYWORDS:

• Frontotemporal dementia
• behavioral variant
• dementia
• psychosis
• early dementia

Acknowledgements

Yuri Brito, MD provided early clinical information on the patient. Eric Wallace, MD provided helpful comments on the interpretation of the CT and MRI images. Adit Friedberg, MD provided helpful comments on the preparation of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Because this is a case report, there are no associated research data to be shared.

Additional information

Funding

Some clinical assessments and genetic testing were supported by NIH grant P01 AG019724.