Usefulness of EEG Techniques in Distinguishing Frontotemporal Dementia from Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias

Overview

Journal Dis Markers

Publisher Wiley

Specialty Biochemistry

Date 2018 Sep 27

PMID 30254710

Citations 15

Authors

Raffaele Nardone

Luca Sebastianelli

Viviana Versace

Leopold Saltuari

Piergiorgio Lochner

Vanessa Frey

Stefan Golaszewski

Francesco Brigo

Eugen Trinka

Yvonne Holler

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The clinical distinction of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) may be difficult. In this narrative review we summarize and discuss the most relevant electroencephalography (EEG) studies which have been applied to demented patients with the aim of distinguishing the various types of cognitive impairment. EEG studies revealed that patients at an early stage of FTD or AD displayed different patterns in the cortical localization of oscillatory activity across different frequency bands and in functional connectivity. Both classical EEG spectral analysis and EEG topography analysis are able to differentiate the different dementias at group level. The combination of standardized low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA) and power parameters seems to improve the sensitivity, but spectral and connectivity biomarkers able to differentiate single patients have not yet been identified. The promising EEG findings should be replicated in larger studies, but could represent an additional useful, noninvasive, and reproducible diagnostic tool for clinical practice.

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