Many families living with FTD benefit from having help at home from a professional agency. These home care services range from medical care to help with daily tasks and companionship. While many families know that skilled nursing is available in the home, helpful therapies such as physical, occupational and speech therapy can also be performed at home. In addition to the convenience of home care, being in a familiar environment is comforting for many people with FTD. Cynthia

Some of our patients ask why they need to come in for clinical follow-up appointments. After all, there is no cure for dementia yet, so why take time out of a busy schedule to come back? To ensure continuity of care and proper management of this rare disease, it is imperative that patients return for their follow-up appointments. Below, we list the top 7 reasons it’s crucial to keep your follow-up appointments with your neurologist. Accurate diagnosis. While our physicians ar

Guest author Alison Lynn, MSW, LSW is a licensed social worker and the Assistant Director of Care Programs at the Penn Memory Center. Alison provides counseling, education, and psychotherapy to patients and families affected by a diagnosis of dementia. Allison was a speaker at the 2017 FTD Caregiver Conference and shared invaluable information for helping children and teenagers negotiate the changes when a parent or other close loved one is diagnosed with a neurodegenerative

Dear Nurse, How do you know when it's time to ask for help from a healthcare provider? If you’ve noticed changing behavior from your loved one, there are strategies you can utilize to manage behavioral changes at home. However, before we come up with strategies, it is important to consider if your loved one needs additional medical attention right now. There are three key questions about new or changing behaviors that can raise a red flag. If you answer “Yes” to any of these

Dear Nurse, My husband has primary progressive aphasia and has difficulty speaking. What sort of things can I be doing to help him communicate? It is important to talk about the different types of primary progressive aphasia, or PPA, that your loved one may have. This will help you to choose directed interventions to improve communication. There are three types of PPA. The first type of PPA is semantic variant PPA, or svPPA. The key feature of svPPA is impaired comprehension.

Written by Gillian Bradley MA, BSN, RN Dear Nurse, Why doesn’t my loved one with FTD understand their difficulties? Why can’t they see how they’ve changed? Are they in denial? Loss of insight into one’s illness is a common symptom of early-stage Frontotemporal dementia (FTD), especially in individuals with behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD). This loss of insight can look like your loved one not understanding their new limitations or not being aware of their symptoms, even when th