Q. What are the symptoms of frontotemporal dementia?

Hello doctor,

My mother has recently received a diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia. Here is a history of her: She had what we believed to be a nervous breakdown four years back. This was after a year of stress from a pending court case. After this breakdown, she displayed some psychotic symptoms. Would constantly go to the toilet to wash her hands. Had obsessive thoughts that were very strong. She was placed on an antipsychotic, sleeping aid Zoplicone and Lithium. After a month, she was stabilized and came home. The obsessive thinking continued but not so much in the form of compulsions. Over the next four years, she was quite up and down and tried to take her life a few times. One becoming close and ended up in an intensive scar. She had taken a large amount of Lithium and was taken off this and antipsychotics. After recovery, she became extremely maniac but obsessions disappeared and then went into a depression where the obsessions started again. Then she displayed some psychotic thinking around my father not to be trusted and would send her back to the initial mental hospital.

We then managed to have her admitted to an OCD center. In here she very quickly declined and became very delusional. They then decided to test her for biological causes. They conducted neuropsychological testing and diagnosed the FTD. I have done a lot of reading on this condition and really have not noticed the majority of the symptoms and the way she is displaying in this institution is very similar to the previous occasion four years ago. She also had an MRI done 1.5 years ago due to some seizures and they did not find any issues on the frontal or temporal lobes. These findings were not reviewed by the neurologist that recently diagnosed the FTP. He was also unable to access any information from her first admission. Does this warrant a secondary opinion.