Session Information
Date: Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Session Title: Cognitive disorders
Session Time: 12:00pm-1:30pm
Location: Exhibit Hall located in Hall B, Level 2
Objective: To explore the cognitive profile of PSP patients in tests of social cognition and to compare their performance to patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and Alzheimer disease (AD).
Background: Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is an atypical Parkinsonian syndrome characterized by an akinetic-rigid phenotype, with supranuclear gaze palsy and frequent falls. Besides motor disabilities, patients can present marked cognitive and behavioral impairment. The cognitive performance of PSP patients in social cognition tasks is not completely understood and the utility of these in the differential diagnosis with other dementia types has not been investigated.
Methods: We included 81 participants (24 healthy controls, 13 early PSP, 25 early bvFTD and 19 early AD). All of them underwent a full clinical and neuropsychological exam. Cognitive assessment included the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) and the short version of the Social Cognition and Emotional Assessment (Mini-SEA), which is composed of a version of the Faux-pas test and a facial emotions recognition test (Ekman).
Results: There was no significant difference between PSP, bvFTD and AD groups regarding sex, educational level, MMSE and FAB scores. Compared to controls and to AD patients, PSP patients showed significantly lower performances in all scores of the Mini-SEA (p =0.003 and p =0.004 respectvely). There was no difference between PSP and bvFTD groups regarding their scores in the Mini-SEA.
Conclusions: Patients with PSP had worse scores on social cognition tests compared to healthy controls and to AD patients. Importantly, these deficits were similar to those observed in bvFTD participants. This aspect should be considered in the perspective of the differential neuropsychological diagnosis between PSP and bvFTD.
To cite this abstract in AMA style:
E.P.F. Resende, P. Caramelli, F.E.C. Cardoso, H.C. Guimarães, M. Hornberger, M. Bertoux, A.L. Teixeira, L. Cruz de Souza. Social cognition assessment in progressive supranuclear palsy: The cognitive interface with frontotemporal dementia [abstract]. Mov Disord. 2016; 31 (suppl 2). https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/social-cognition-assessment-in-progressive-supranuclear-palsy-the-cognitive-interface-with-frontotemporal-dementia/. Accessed May 22, 2025.« Back to 2016 International Congress
MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/social-cognition-assessment-in-progressive-supranuclear-palsy-the-cognitive-interface-with-frontotemporal-dementia/