Visual variant (posterior cortical atrophy) Alzheimer dementia
- Visual perception is compromised in absence of any ophthalmological problem (Salardini 2019)
- Typically presents in mid-50’s or early 60’s (Crutch et al, 2017)
- Core cognitive symptoms should include at least 3 of the following (symptoms listed in order of frequency): (Crutch et al, 2017)
- Space perception deficit
- Simultanagnosia
- Object perception deficit
- Constructional dyspraxia
- Environmental agnosia
- Oculomotor apraxia
- Dressing apraxia
- Optic ataxia
- Alexia
- Left/right disorientation
- Acalculia
- Limb apraxia (not limb-kinetic)
- Apperceptive prosopagnosia
- Agraphia
- Homonymous visual field defect
- Finger agnosia
- Relative sparing of episodic memory, nonvisual language function, executive function, and behavior / personality in early disease (Crutch et al, 2017; Salardini 2019)
- Neuroimaging demonstrates occipito-parietal or occipito-temporal atrophy on MRI (or hypometabolism / hypoperfusion on FDG-PET or SPECT) (Crutch et al, 2017)
References
Crutch, S. J. et al. Consensus classification of posterior cortical atrophy. Alzheimers Dement. J. Alzheimers Assoc. 13, 870–884 (2017). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28259709/
Salardini, A. An Overview of Primary Dementias as Clinicopathological Entities. Semin. Neurol. 39, 153–166 (2019). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30925609/
