Frontal variant of Alzheimer’s disease

In this condition, there is a disorder of executive control in addition to the memory difficulties associated with Alzheimer's disease.  Individuals have difficulty performing multistep tasks such as managing finances, manipulating complicated equipment such as working a TV remote control, and operating complex machinery such as power tools.  There can be difficulty with judgment because several crucial bits of information must be used at the same time to make a judgment, and these multiple pieces of information cannot be evaluated at the same time.  There are deficits with selective attention as well.  This can result in perseveration (getting stuck on a particular idea or response), over-attraction to a particular feature of the perceptual environment (perceptual boundedness), and echoing features of the environment (such as echoing the speech of others, known as echolalia, and mirroring the actions of others, known as echopraxia).  Sometimes there can be prominent behavioral disturbances that can appear similar to the behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia.