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Some dementia patients begin to create art. We may now know why.

A study has identified the potential brain structures and their connections that lead some frontotemporal dementia patients to start painting or producing other forms of art

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August 10, 2023 at 9:01 a.m. EDT
A colorful drawing made up of abstract shapes.
Art collected from patients with different subtypes of frontotemporal dementia included painting, quilting, jewelry making, sculpture, pottery and montage making. They often had bright colors and rarely focused on human faces. (Friedberg A et al., JAMA Neurology, 2023)
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The man in behavioral neurologist Adit Friedberg’s office could not speak. “He could not even utter a single word,” Friedberg said. The man had lost his ability to understand or produce words, and had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a form of frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

He was, however, painting — and often. His wife placed a pile of his work on Friedberg’s desk and asked, “What is he trying to tell me?”