Alzheimer Disease

Background: There is limited information about the functional profile of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Objective: To compare direct and indirect assessments of activities of daily living (ADLs) in bvFTD and Alzheimer disease (AD) and their relationship with cognitive performance.Methods: In all, 20 patients with bvFTD, 30 patients with AD, and 34 normal controls (NCs), matched for age, education, and severity of dementia, completed the Direct Assessment of Functional Perfor-mance (DAFS-BR) and usual cognitive measures. The Disability Assessment for Dementia (DAD) was completed by caregivers. Results: In DAFS-BR, patients with bvFTD and AD had similar performance but lower than NCs. In DAD, there were no sig-nificant differences for effective performance, but patients with bvFTD had lower scores for initiation and planning/organization. Patients with bvFTD were less impaired than AD in cognition. Conclusion: Functional changes in bvFTD seem to be better documented by indirect measures