Adolfo Garcia, PhD, University of San Andrés, Buenos Aires, Argentina, shares recommendations to facilitate the use of linguistic deficits in the diagnosis of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). Firstly, it is vital to raise awareness of the importance of those deficits in bvFTD. Two review studies reporting language measures in Latin America and globally are underway. Dr Garcia highlights that since most evidence comes from high-income countries, the relevance of language deficits in low-income countries remains inadequately understood. Considering that the current gold-standard diagnostic tools are not easily accessible in low-income countries, access to low-cost tools such as language assessments could be a valuable opportunity. Additionally, the languages deficits in bvFTD occur in the early stages of the disease and can even be tracked in the pre-clinical stages. However, research and validation of these tools are unequal across different world regions. Engaging the community to create language-specific tools to capture these deficits is also necessary. This interview was conducted during the virtual 2021 World Congress on Controversies in Neurology (CONy) meeting.
