Pick's disease
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| ICD-10 | G31.0 |
|---|---|
| ICD-9 | 331.11 |
Pick's disease is the old name for frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD). However, the term is used in different ways by different people which has led to confusion both in the medical and non-medical communities.
Most doctors will use 'Pick's disease' nowadays to refer purely to a particular type of underlying pathology associated with the clinical syndrome of FTLD. Pick bodies are inclusions seen under the microscope in the brains of some patients affected with FTLD. They contain a protein called tau and hence the disease is often referred to as a tauopathy (along with progressive supranuclear palsy, corticobasal degeneration etc.). There are other types of pathological changes associated with FTLD which are not Pick's disease (Tau positive inclusions but not Pick bodies, Ubiquitin positive but tau negative inclusions and dementia lacking distinctive histology) and hence the change in the name doctors use for this syndrome.
However, colloquially the term 'Pick's disease' still often retains its meaning of the clinical syndrome of FTLD and particularly of the behavioural subtype FTD. Certainly a number of patient support groups continue to use the name Pick's disease in their titles.
This confusion has led to many neurologists suggesting other names for this syndrome. The most prominent is perhaps Kertesz' suggestion of the term 'Pick Complex' to encompass not only the clinical subtypes of FTLD but also the overlapping syndromes of corticobasal degeneration and progressive supranuclear palsy.
[edit] History
The Czechoslovakian neurologist and psychiatrist Arnold Pick first described the clinical syndrome and characteristic neuronal inclusions, or Pick bodies, associated with Pick's disease in 1892.
[edit] References
- Neary D, Snowden JS, Gustafson L, Passant U, Stuss D, Black S, Freedman M, Kertesz A, Robert PH, Albert M, Boone K, Miller BL, Cummings J, Benson DF. (1998) Frontotemporal lobar degeneration: a consensus on clinical diagnostic criteria. Neurology 51(6):1546-54. Available: [1]
- Pick A. (1892) Über die Beziehungen der senilen Hirnatrophie zur Aphasie. Prager medicinische Wochenschrift Prague 17:165-167.
[edit] External links
- Pick's Disease Support Group Online (UK-based)
- Another Pick's Disease Support Group Online (US-based)
- Pick's Disease info
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