Picture agnosia as a characteristic of posterior cortical atrophy.
BACKGROUND
Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a degenerative disease characterized by progressive visual agnosia with posterior cerebral atrophy. We examine the role of the picture naming test and make a number of suggestions with regard to diagnosing PCA as atypical dementia.


METHODS
We investigated 3 cases of early-stage PCA with 7 control cases of Alzheimer disease (AD). The patients and controls underwent a naming test with real objects and colored photographs of familiar objects. We then compared rates of correct answers.


RESULTS
Patients with early-stage PCA showed significant inability to recognize photographs compared to real objects (F = 196.284, p = 0.0000) as measured by analysis of variants. This difficulty was also significant to AD controls (F = 58.717, p = 0.0000).


CONCLUSIONS
Picture agnosia is a characteristic symptom of early-stage PCA, and the picture naming test is useful for the diagnosis of PCA as atypical dementia at an early stage.
Department of Neurology, Showa University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
Azusa
A
Sugimoto
Akira
A
Midorikawa
Shinichi
S
Koyama
Akinori
A
Futamura
Sotaro
S
Hieda
Mitsuru
M
Kawamura
D000377:Agnosia / Q000209:etiology*; D001284:Atrophy / Q000473:pathology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000473:pathology; D003704:Dementia / Q000150:complications* / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon