Author(s): Natascia De Lucia, Silvio Peluso, Anna De Rosa, Elena Salvatore, Giuseppe De Michele and Dario Grossi
Background: In visuo-constructional copying tasks, individuals with dementia can reproduce distorted or simplified figures resulting in the so-called ‘Constructional apraxia’ (CA) impairment. CA has been often described in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Vascular dementia (VAD), or Fronto-temporal dementia (FTD), and less often in patients with Parkinson’s disease and associated dementia (PDD). There have been suggestions that different cognitive mechanisms could account for CA in different forms of dementia, but this hypothesis has not been directly verified. In the present study we explored visuo-constructional abilities in a sample of AD, VAD, FTD and PDD patients. We also investigated the cognitive factors associated to CA in these patients’ groups. Methods: We enrolled 72 AD patients, 61 VAD patients, 33 FTD patients and 32 PDD patients. All the patients underwent a copying drawings task to assess CA, and an extensive neuropsychological assessment of frontal/ executive, visuo-spatial, and memory skills. Results: FTD patients showed significant higher scores on drawing copying task compared to all other groups, whereas similar scores were observed between AD, VAD and PDD patients. Moreover, CA was strongly related to visuo-spatial impairments in AD and PDD patients and to frontal/executive impairments in VAD and FTD patients. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that CA could be ascribed to distinctive cognitive defects in the different forms of dementia.
