Behavioural abnormalities associated with rapid deterioration of language functions in semantic dementia respond to sertraline
Year of Publication 2009
Abstract
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) consists of three main clinical syndromes: (1) frontal variant FTD presenting predominantly with behavioral abnormalities, (2) semantic dementia presenting with fluent aphasic deficits and (3) primary progressive aphasia presenting with non-fluent aphasic deficits. We have observed that significant behavioral problems may occur in some patients with semantic dementia when both comprehension and verbal output deteriorate rapidly. These behavioral abnormalities appear to respond favourably to low-dose sertraline. In summary, the observations indicate that low-dose sertraline may be helpful in alleviating behavioral problems in a subgroup of patients with semantic dementia that experience rapid deterioration of language. These findings should not be generalised to the entire population of FTD patients presenting with language problems. Randomized clinical trials to establish the validity of our empirical observations are needed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved)