Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA)

Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is a neurological syndrome associated with certain types of dementia. Alzheimer’s Disease and frontotemporal dementia are the most common underlying forms of dementia in which PPA occurs. PPA typically begins as gradual, subtle language deficits that progresses to a nearly complete inability to speak.

There are three variants of PPA:

1. Semantic (the dominant type and is present in most instances of PPA)
2. Logopenic (LPA), due to atrophy in the left posterior temporal cortex and inferior parietal lobule
3. Non-fluent/agrammatic (stumbling for words, grammar is very poor)

• Gorno-Tempini, M. L., Hillis, A. E., Weintraub, S., Kertesz, A., Mendez, M., Cappa, S. E. E. A., ... & Manes, F. (2011). Classification of primary progressive aphasia and its variants. Neurology, WNL-0b013e31821103e6.