bvFTD symptoms explained

We tend to think of really five clusters of behavioural symptoms. So firstly a change in your motivation. So, a loss of motivation, what we call apathy. The second thing is the development of inappropriate social behaviour. Things that you wouldn’t have done before, and what we might call disinhibition, or being a bit more losing your inhibitions. The third group is becoming a bit more obsessive compulsive. So sticking to routines, being unable to change the exact way that you do something. The fourth is a loss of empathy. So inability to understand the feelings that you have towards other people. So being more rude to people, not being as nice to them as you did before.

And then the last group of behaviours is a slightly odd sort of group of behaviours, a change in your appetite, So developing a sweet tooth, or sometimes actually eating too much, what we call hyperphagia. So, those are the big sort of group of five clusters of behavioural symptoms. But in the diagnostic criteria for behavioural variant FTD there is a sixth thing. And that’s because our frontal lobe has a cognitive function, so a thinking function as well. And that’s what we call executive function, or the ability really to control what the rest of the brain is doing, planning, problem solving, being able to make decisions.