Modeling contributions of cognition and apathy to functional impairment in younger-onset dementia.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Overlaps in symptom presentation limits the capacity to predict functional impairment and future care needs in younger-onset dementia syndromes.

Methods

A general additive model (GAM) was applied to cross-sectional retrospective data from 375 participants with younger-onset dementia; 152 behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), 118 Alzheimer's disease (AD), 66 semantic dementia, and 39 progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA). This GAM aimed to explore the dynamic interrelationships between established measures of global cognition, apathy, and functional impairment.

Results

Our GAM significantly predicted functional impairment in all syndromes with a high explained variance (59.5%). Cognition and apathy emerged as significant predictors of function

SUBMITTER: Warren SL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12819045 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan-Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature