title: Altered sense of humor in dementia.
abstract: Sense of humor is potentially relevant to social functioning in dementias, but has been little studied in these diseases. We designed a semi-structured informant questionnaire to assess humor behavior and preferences in patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD; n = 15), semantic dementia (SD; n = 7), progressive nonfluent aphasia (PNFA; n = 10), and Alzheimer's disease (AD; n = 16) versus healthy age-matched individuals (n = 21). Altered (including frankly inappropriate) humor responses were significantly more frequent in bvFTD and SD (all patients) than PNFA or AD (around 40% of patients). All patient groups liked satirical and absurdist comedy significantly less than did healthy controls. This pattern was reported premorbidly for satirical comedy in bvFTD, PNFA, and AD. Liking for slapstick comedy did not differ between groups. Altered sense of humor is particularly salient in bvFTD and SD, but also frequent in AD and PNFA. Humor may be a sensitive probe of social cognitive impairment in dementia, with diagnostic, biomarker and social implications.
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Camilla N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.|London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Jennifer M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Nicholas
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Elizabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Hannah L
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: Golden
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Miriam H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Felix J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Woodward
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Kirsty
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Macpherson
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Catherine F
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Slattery
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Catherine J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Mummery
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Jonathan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Schott
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Jonathan D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Rohrer
authors.affiliation: Dementia Research Centre, UCL Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
authors.forename: Jason D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Warren
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D057180:Frontotemporal Dementia / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D057178:Primary Progressive Nonfluent Aphasia / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; comedy; dementia; frontotemporal dementia; humor; progressive aphasia; semantic dementia