Major depression mistaken as frontotemporal dementia due to PET scan

Abstract

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is associated with progressive degeneration of the frontal lobes and this leads to changes in language, motor symptoms, behavior and executive functions.1 In an early stage, patients with FTD usually have intact memory functions.2 40% of the cases of FTD are misdiagnosed,3 with delayed diagnosis compared to other dementias.4 Differentiating FTD from other psychiatric disorders poses challenges, given executive impairment is a common symptom across disorders.5 The need for diagnostic tools has led to the increased use of positron emission tomography (PET), which is regarded as the most accurate in-vivo method for investigating brain metabolism.6 We present a case where PET was central to the diagnostic process.