Egocentric versus allocentric spatial memory in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease

Tu, Sicong, Spiers, Hugo J., Hodges, John R., Piguet, Olivier and Hornberger, Michael ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2214-3788 (2017) Egocentric versus allocentric spatial memory in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Alzheimers Disease, 59 (3). pp. 883-892. ISSN 1387-2877

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Abstract

Background: Diagnosis of behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) can be challenging, in particular when patients present with significant memory problems, which can increase the chance of a misdiagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Growing evidence suggests spatial orientation is a reliable cognitive marker able to differentiate these two clinical syndromes. Objective: Assess the integrity of egocentric and allocentric heading orientation and memory in bvFTD and AD, and their clinical implications. Method: A cohort of 22 patient with dementia (11 bvFTD; 11 AD) and 14 healthy controls were assessed on the virtual supermarket task of spatial orientation and a battery of standardized neuropsychological measures of visual and verbal memory performance. Results: Judgements of egocentric and allocentric heading direction were differentially impaired in bvFTD and AD, with AD performing significantly worse on egocentric heading judgements than bvFTD. Both patient cohorts, however, showed similar degree of impaired allocentric spatial representation, and associated hippocampal pathology. Conclusions: The findings suggest egocentric heading judgements offer a more sensitive discriminant of bvFTD and AD than allocentric map-based measures of spatial memory.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	orientation,hippocampus,frontotemporal dementia,alzheimer’s disease
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Norwich Medical School
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Groups > Mental Health Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > Research Centres > Lifespan Health
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2017 05:08
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2024 12:47
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/63671
DOI:	10.3233/JAD-160592

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