Breakthrough in Caregiver Support for Rare Dementia FTD

Sept. 21, 2008 - PRLog -- The www.ftdsupportforum.com has, within 9 months, just registered it's 1,000th member. FTD is the acronym for a rare, early age onset, degenerative brain disease, known medically as Frontotemporal Dementia.

This on line support group's mission is to provide a place for safe and secure communications for people who have been diagnosed with FTD and those who care for loved ones with FTD.

Members are dedicated to supporting one another in a sensitive, respectful and sincere manner.

This forum also encourages increased awareness of FTD within the medical community and the general public, with the belief that knowledge will bring improved access to support networks that are emerging on the internet and elsewhere.

As many as seven million Americans may be afflicted with a form of dementia. Frontotemporal Dementia may account for 2-5 percent or 140,000 – 350,000 cases of dementia and for as many as 25 percent of early age on-set (pre-senile) dementias.1 Unless scientists discover a way to delay or halt these brain attacks, some 8 million people are expected to have some form of dementia by 2030, and by 2050 that toll could reach 17 million.2   That may mean almost 400,000 FTD sufferers by 2030 and 850,000 by 2050.

Worldwide the statistics are alarming: 62 million people between the ages of 30 and 69 are suffering some form of dementia.3 & 4    By 2050, with global population of 9.191 billion there may be 85 million people suffering from FTD" 4 & 3

The term Pick's Complex, identified in 1903 as different than Alzheimer's disease is now transitioning and becoming known as one category within the Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration diseases. Due to tauopathies (protein brain deposits ) research and ever improving brain imaging technologies ".... it is only perhaps in the last decade that we (scientists, academians and doctors) have become more comfortable calling a dementia condition, a possible or probable frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and then trying to identify which one of the FTLDs might be the best fit" says Dr. Leilani Doty, PhD, Director, University of Florida Cognitive and Memory Disorder Clinics, McKnight Brain Institute.

For more information on FTD please visit www.ftd-picks.org, www.ftdSupport.com, and www.pdsg.org.uk

1 http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/j...jsp?nodeid=573
2 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17694931/ based on this statement: Unless scientists discover a way to delay Alzheimer’s brain attack, some 7.7 million people are expected to have the disease by 2030, the report says. By 2050, that toll could reach 16 million. (if FTD='s 5% of total cases, and Alz is 7.7, then total would be over 8 mil and 5% is 385,000{"almost 400,000"}. By 2050, 16mil Alz's patients would be part of a total of 17 mil total dementias and 5% is 850,000 FTD's
3 http://www.alzheimer-europe.org/?lm2...h=6FB10D101364
4 http://www.un.org/esa/population/pub...ights_rev.pdf= population statistics worldwide

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The purpose of this forum is to provide a place for safe and secure communications for people who have been diagnosed with FTD and those who care for loved ones with FTD.