Elisabet Englund, Sweden

History of FTD

Presentation:

It took a while to identify the neurocognitive condition and associated brain changes that could eventually be disentangled from the well-established and known forms of brain disease Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia (let alone the other, later emanating forms of brain cognitive disorders). With roots in several very early observations from different parts of the world, the concept of FTD emerged during the late 1980’s – and the understanding of this entity was further complicated by the fact that the entity was manyfold – and many special forms were then discovered and acknowledged.

The international community collaborating on the theme convened in small groups, then in small-scale conferences that subsequently grew into big international congresses. Meanwhile professionals and students in all programs throughout the medical spectrum learned about FTD, and slowly but gradually got to include the spectrum of FTD diseases in their diagnostic arsenal.

The FTD field is now highly active and expanding, where new therapeutic strategies as well as diagnostic methods are developed, and where also morphological new findings in the brain are still being made.

Bio:

EE is a professor of neuropathology in Lund Sweden, and a senior consultant in diagnostic neuropathology for Southern Sweden.

She covers the neuropathology in neurodegenerative diseases, cerebrovascular-ischemic disorders and cardiac arrest encephalopathy, and from infectious diseases and tumors to inflammatory as well as demyelinating disorders. She has been teaching during 40 years and mentored 70 master students and a dozen PhD students.

She published 260 original papers and book chapters and is currently doing projects in the areas of FTD, AD and LBD, CVD and stroke, as well as cardiac arrest encephalopathy and peripheral small fiber neuropathy.