Pick’s disease is a very rare psychological and neurological disease that causes progressive and
severe dementia, which is irreversible. This disease is a degenerative disorder that is classified under
frontotemporal dementia, or FTD. Frontotemporal dementia results from a set of brain complications
called frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), which is characterized by atrophy exclusively in the
brain’s frontal and temporal lobes. According to Dr. Eileen H. Bigio, there are two types of FTLD:
tauopathies (FTLD-tau) and ubiquitinopathies (FTLD-U). A tauopathy is a broad name for a
neurodegenerative disorder in which an excess of the tau protein is found in the brain (a more well-
known tauopathy is Alzheimer’s). Pick disease is one of the FTLD-tau subtypes and is termed FTLD-tau
(Bigio, 2013).
There are three major subtypes of FTD’s. The first is Behavior Variant Frontotemporal
Dementia, or bvFTD. This is characterized by obvious changes in personality, relationships and the way
they conduct themselves. This is caused by prominent nerve cell loss in areas of the brain that control
empathy, judgement, conduct and etcetera. It most commonly occurs in people aged fifty to sixty, but
can however be found even as early as in a person’s twenties. Other changes include but are not limited
to: behavioral symptoms like personal hygiene habits falling to pieces, hypersexual behavior, and loss of
impulse control. Emotional deviations from normality are also common, including apathy, loss of
motivation, sudden emotional blunting and violent mood-swings (Association for Frontotemporal
Degeneration, N/A).
The second subtype is Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), which can and will affect language
