Abstract
Although deficits of behavior or personality have been clinically recognized consequent to frontal damage or disease, few psychometric measures of behavior change in frontal disorders have been developed in Japan. The purpose of this study was to develop a Japanese version of the Frontal Behavior Inventory (FBI) and to examine its usefulness. The participants were 24 elderly healthy normal subjects and 33 patients suffering from conditions including local brain damage (LB), Alzheimer’s type dementia (AD), fronto-temporal dementia (FTD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The FBI, Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised, Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test were administered to all participants. FBI total scores in patients with LB, AD and FTD were higher than those of the normal subjects, and each patient group showed different characteristics by item analysis. Inappropriateness scores in the LB and FTD patients were higher than those of the normal subjects. In the LB patients, apathy, aspontaneity, disorganization, inattention, and loss of insight scores were high. In the AD patients, concreteness and logopenia scores were high. Scores for each item in the elderly normal subjects were generally low, but indifference, irritability, loss of insight, inflexibility and perseveration were observed in over 30 % of the normal participants. On the other hand, hypersexuality and alien hand were not observed in the normal subjects. Features of behavior observed on the FBI were not related to findings on the neuropsychological tests (WAIS-R, WMS-R, or WCST). These results suggest that patients with LB, AD and FTD have some problems concerning frontal behavior. The FBI appears to be a useful tool to detect cognitive behavior deficits in patients with brain damage or brain degenerative disorders compared against normal values.
