ECNP 2021 | Recognizing atypical Alzheimer’s disease

João Massano, MD, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, outlines the variability in symptomatology across patients presenting with typical and atypical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In typical AD cases, normal presentation includes episodic memory loss. Over time, as pathology spreads to cortical areas, further symptoms develop including disorders of attention, language, executive function, and visuospatial function. However, AD pathology is not always linked to memory loss as the presenting symptom. Dr Massano introduces the three phenotypes of atypical Alzheimer’s disease: posterior cortical atrophy, frontal variant Alzheimer’s disease, and logopenic progressive aphasia. Deficits can vary from patient to patient and diagnosing these individuals as having AD pathology is an important issue as the diagnosis is not immediately obvious. This interview took place at the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology congress 2021.