Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffA variety of mutations on several different genes have been linked to specific subtypes of frontotemporal dementia. But more than half the people who develop frontotemporal dementia have no family history of dementia.
In some cases of frontotemporal dementia, the affected parts of the brain contain microscopic Pick bodies — abnormal protein-filled structures that develop within brain cells. Frontotemporal dementia was once known as Pick's disease, but now that terminology is reserved for the subtype that actually features these abnormal structures.
- Knopman DS. Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. In: Goldman L, et al. Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/109993418-3/771185545/1492/1426.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2805-5..50430-4--cesec84_18054. Accessed Nov. 12, 2008.
- Shadlen MF, et al. Dementia syndromes. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 12, 2008.
- NINDS frontotemporal dementia information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/picks/picks.htm. Accessed Nov. 12, 2008.
- Josephs KA. Frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Neurologic Clinics. 2007;25:683.
- Petersen R. Mayo Clinic Guide to Alzheimer's Disease. Rochester, Minn.: Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research; 2006:115.
- Shadlen MF, et al. Evaluation of cognitive impairment and dementia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 12, 2008.
- Neurological diagnostic tests and procedures. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/misc/diagnostic_tests.htm. Accessed Nov. 12, 2008.
- Press D, et al. Treatment of behavioral symptoms related to dementia. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 13, 2008.
