Visuomotor Figure Construction and Visual Figure Delayed Recall and Recognition in Primary Progressive Aphasia.

backgroundIndividuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) develop visuospatial deficits over time, and those with logopenic variant (lvPPA) are at greatest risk of developing such deficits. However, not all previous studies of visuospatial deficits in PPA have ensured equivalent duration of disease across variants and few have measured deficits longitudinally.

aimsThe aims of our study were to: 1) investigate differences in baseline visuomotor figure construction, visual figure delayed recall, and figure recognition in PPA variants with similar symptom duration at baseline, and 2) explore patterns of decline in these areas. METHODS & PROCEDURES: Ninety-three individuals with PPA [39 lvPPA, 24 nonfluent agrammatic PPA (nfaPPA), and 30 semantic variant PPA (svPPA)] were administered the Benson Complex Figure Copy, Benson Complex Figure Delay (Recall), and Benson Figure Recognition. Thirty individuals completed this testing 3 to 47 months post baseline. OUTCOME &

resultsParticipants with lvPPA and svPPA showed lower mean scores than those with nfaPPA on visual figure delayed recall at baseline, even though there were no differences in estimated time from disease onset or correlation with disease severity as reflected by naming performance,

conclusionsThese findings revealed relatively spared visuospatial memory in nfaPPA, which may aid in the differential diagnosis of PPA and contribute to designing therapy or compensatory strategies.