Odor identification impairment is a feature of several neurodegenerative disorders. Although neurodegenerative changes in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) subtypes involve areas important for olfactory processing, data on olfactory function in these patients are limited. An 18-item, multiple-choice odor identification test developed at our memory clinic, the Motol Hospital smell test, was administered to 9 patients with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, 13 patients with the language variants, primary nonfluent aphasia (n = 7) and semantic dementia (n = 6), and 8 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy. Compared to the control group (n = 15), all FTLD subgroups showed significant impairment of odor identification (P < .05). The differences between the FTLD subgroups were not significant. No correlation between odor identification and neuropsychological tests results was found. Our data suggest that odor identification impairment is a symptom common to FTLD syndromes, and it seems to be based on olfactory structure damage rather than cognitive decline.

1st Department of Neurology School of Medicine and St Anne's Hospital Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic Applied Neurosciences Research Group CEITEC Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Department of Neurology Memory Clinic 2nd Faculty of Medicine and Motol University Hospital Charles University Prague Prague Czech Republic

Department of Neurology Memory Clinic 2nd Faculty of Medicine and Motol University Hospital Charles University Prague Prague Czech Republic International Clinical Research Center St Anne's University Hospital Brno Brno Czech Republic

University of South Florida School of Aging Studies Tampa FL USA

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