Abstract for presentation at Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists Annual Scientific Meeting 2008

A Chinese Semantic Dementia Case Report

  • Dr Yu Zhuang, TianTan Hospital and Capital Medical University, China
  • Dr Yue Huang, Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, and University of New South Wales, Australia
  • Dr Xue Sun, Dept. of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming, China
  • Dr Zai Han, Key Laboratory for Cognitive Science and Learning of Ministry of Education & School, China
  • Dr Clement Loy, Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute, and University of New South Wales, Australia
  • Dr Yong Wang, TianTan Hospital and Capital Medical University, China

    • A 56 years old Chinese businessman presented with a three-year history of a fluent aphasia, accompanied by mild behavioral features but preservation of other cognitive domains, accompanied by left anterior temporal lobe atrophy, satisfying the consensus clinical criteria for semantic dementia. This man made characteristic errors when reading compound Chinese words aloud. He pronounced their components rather than the overall compound word. For example, the compound word 痰 (meaning ‘phlegm’) – correctly pronounced as ‘tan2’ (The number following ‘tan’ represents intonation) – was read aloud as 炎 (yan2, meaning ‘blazing’). In non-phonetic languages such as the Chinese language, the concept of surface dyslexia may manifest itself differently. DTI imaging in our patient found decreased fractional anisotropy values in the left arcuate fasciculus and tracts linked to Wernicke’s area. This supports the idea that temporal lobe connections are disrupted in people with semantic dementia, as demonstrated in a previous MRI/PET study. DTI was found to be more sensitive in detecting white matter abnormalities than conventional MRI, with good correspondence with histopathologic findings. To translate DTI into clinical use, further standardization of quantitative measures and norms will need to be established.

    Acknowledgment: This research is funded by State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning Open Project Grant and Nature Science Foundation of Beijing (No. 7052035) (YMZ) and AAR Dementia Research Grants (2007) (YH)

    Conference Organiser - ICMS Pty Ltd