Abstract Details

Title Figure Copy and Recall Profiles Help Distinguish Alzheimer’s Disease, Frontotemporal Degeneration, and Dementia with Lewy Bodies

Topic Aging, Dementia, and Behavioral Neurology

Presentation(s) P7 - Poster Session 7 (5:30 PM-6:30 PM)

Poster/Presentation
Number 10-009

Objective Examine differences in figure copy and recall profiles across common major neurocognitive disorders to facilitate differential diagnosis.

Background

Cognitive screening for neurocognitive disorders emphasizes verbal episodic memory, the sine qua non of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In other major neurocognitive disorders such as Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) and Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB), memory deficits are typically less prominent than executive cognitive deficits. Moreover, visual-spatial and visual-constructive abilities are often more severely impaired in DLB than AD patients. We hypothesized that figure copy and recall profiles may help discriminate these three neurocognitive disorders.

Design/Methods We examined data from patient subjects (34 AD, 50 FTD, and 34 DLB) evaluated in the University of North Carolina Hospital Memory Disorders Clinic. We conducted a standard neurocognitive test assessment that included the Mini-Mental State Exam Extended (MMX), which scores Figure Copy of the intersecting pentagon figure on a 4-point scale, and adds an incidental Figure Recall task scored on the same 4-point scale. We compared Figure Copy and Recall performance across AD, FTD, and DLB subjects, predicting that AD subjects would do relatively worse on Figure Recall, and DLB subjects would do relatively worse on Figure Copy.

Results

Mean Figure Copy was lower in DLB (n.s.) and mean Figure Recall was lower in AD subjects (n.s.). However, Figure Recall – Figure Copy score was significantly greater in AD subjects (p = 0.01). Qualitatively, 10% of subjects did better on Figure Recall than Figure Copy, which we refer to as Graphomotor Conduction Apraxia (GCA), most of whom (7/12) were DLB subjects.

Conclusions Comparing performance of Figure Copy and Figure Recall tasks on the MMX provides quantitative and qualitative data that may help discriminate AD, FTD, and DLB patients. GCA was more frequently seen in DLB subjects (20%), and may help identify a specific cognitive phenotype of DLB.

Authors/Disclosures
Amalia Peterson, MD (Vanderbilt University Medical Center) PRESENTER	Dr. Peterson has nothing to disclose.
	No disclosure on file
Matthew Harris	Matthew Harris has nothing to disclose.
	No disclosure on file
Daniel Kaufer, MD, FAAN	No disclosure on file

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