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  • My book, co-edited with my colleague and friend Dr. Ali Atri, Dementia: Comprehensive Principles and Practice, was published by Oxford University Press in August 2014; to order, visit http://www.oup.com/us, search for Dickerson and enter the following promotion code to receive a 30% discount: 32863. Also click here to order it on Amazon. This book features extensive information on FTD and related disorders.  

    • Welcome to the MGH FTD Unit

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    News
  • Fall 2020: We are finalizing our preparations to return to in-person research operations and are continuing to advance our remote research and care activities.
  • Summer 2020: We said a fond farewell to Rania Ezzo and Shaz Henderson, who matriculated into graduate school programs in the field, and to Jess Collins and Claire Cordella who left our team for other opportunities. We welcomed a new team member, Inola Howe, who joined us as a clinical research coordinator, moving from Ohio.
  • Summer 2020: We were proud that members of our team gave more than a dozen presentations at the web-streamed Alzheimer's Association International Conference.
  • Spring 2020: Shortly after Dr. Dickerson participated in the Scientific Program planning committee meeting for the Alzheimer's Association International Conference, the Covid-19 pandemic struck and we moved our entire clinical and research program into a remote operation, with some elements of the program pausing. As remote work began, we welcomed a new team member, Amy Marchesano, who joined our caregiver research program.
  • Winter 2019-2020: Members of our team presented new research at several meetings, including the Human Amyloid Imaging meeting in Miami and the Tau 2020 meeting in Washington DC.
  • Fall 2019: Dr. was proud to give an invited lecture on impaired social cognition and behavior in Frontotemporal Dementia at the 24th World Congress of Neurology in Dubai, UAE. It was an honor to meet our colleagues from around the world who are caring for patients and advancing research on these diseases.
  • Fall 2019: We are proud of our Speech-Language Pathology team who gave presentations at several conferences this fall.
  • Fall 2019: Click here to see Dr. Dickerson discuss a PPA case in an on-line CME forum.
  • Summer 2019: Congratulations to Dr. Bonnie Wong who led our group's publication reviewing our approach to the diagnosis and management of Posterior Cortical Atrophy.
  • Spring 2019: I am delighted that a multi-national group of colleagues and I published a summary paper on issues in the development of new treatments for FTD and related disorders.
  • Winter 2018-2019: We are excited to launch our first NIH-funded study of caregivers!
  • Fall 2018: Katie Brandt, our FTD Unit's Director of Caregiver Support and Public Relations, was quoted in an excellent NPR story on Dr. Helen Kales' DICE approach to behavioral symptom management in patients with dementia; our pilot study of DICE in FTD is ongoing.
  • Fall 2019: Dr. Dickerson gave an invited talk about FTD and PPA at the 24th World Congress of Neurology meeting in Dubai

  • The 5th annual MGH FTD Unit Gala took place on Friday October 19 in Cambridge MA. You can still click here to donate to support our program. Thank you to all who participated to make it such a wonderful success!

  • Summer 2019: Members of the FTD Unit presented new research at the 2019 AAIC meeting in Los Angeles in July.

  • Spring 2019: Dr. Dickerson once again co-directed the 2019 Harvard Dementia Course May 29 - June 1.

  • FTD Unit members attended the NIH ADRD Summit March 14 and 15.

  • Spring 2019: Thank you to those who attended our 8th annual FTD Unit Education day April 5th 2019.

  • Fall 2018: 11th International Conference on FTD Sydney, Australia
    November 11-14, 2018
     We attended the 11th international conference on FTD and presented new research.
  • Fall 2018: Thank you to all of you who attended our 4th annual Even of the Arts for FTD in the fall 2018. Click here to donate to support the cause if you wish.

  • Summer 2018: We welcomed a number of new team members, including behavioral neurology/neuropsychiatry fellows Drs. Neguine Rezaii, Amy Newhouse, and Mahdi Razafsha, as well as Dr. Sheena Dev, neuropsychology post-doc. We said a fond farewell to behavioral neurology fellow Dr. Shan Siddiqi and to Haroon Popal and Sara Makaretz.
  • Spring 2018: 70th American Academy of Neurology Meeting
    April 21-28, 2018
    Dr. Dickerson and team presented new research and taught courses on PPA, FTD and Alzheimer Dementias.

  • Fall 2017: Congratulations to Katie Brandt who was selected for membership on the national Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care, and Services. Read more about it here. We are all very proud of this important accomplishment! Katie is joined on the committee by Dr. Brad Hyman, director of our Alzheimer's Center.
  • August 2017: We said a fond farewell to behavioral neurology fellow Dr. Saurabh Sharma and a warm welcome to behavioral neurology fellow Dr. Shan Siddiqi.
  • July 2017: Members of the MGH FTD Unit presented new research and the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in London.
  • April 2017: Thank you to everyone who made our 6th annual FTD Unit Caregiver Education Day on April 7 2017 such a success! Read more here about our second annual MGH FTD Unit gala.
  • Fall 2016: Megan Quimby and Katie Brandt presented a summary of our speech-music support group, conducted in partnership with Joyce Shapiro Gordon, MedRhythms team members, and Berkeley Professor Kathleen Howland, at the International Conference on FTD in Munich. Jessica Collins also presented the results of our collaboration with UCSF on the onset and progression of semantic variant PPA
  • Summer 2016: We welcomed Kay Sweeney, Sam Krivensky, and Haroon Popal as new research assistants on our team. We said a fond farewell to Christina Caso and Mike Stepanovic, and to Drs. Joel Salinas and Alessandro Biffi.
  • Spring 2016: We held are 5th FTD Unit Caregiver Education Day with approximately 100 attendees in Waltham MA. 2015
  • Fall-winter 2015: Megan Quimby, Katie Brandt, Joyce Shapiro Gordon--in partnership with MedRhythms Inc and music therapist, speech pathologist, and Berkeley Professor Kathleen Howland--ran our second highly successful PPA support group over a series of weekly sessions.
  • October 2015: Thank you to Sybil and Kemon Sermos and the other members of our first FTD Unit Gala Fundraising team for your outstanding efforts to bring our community together to raise money to support more research and care programs in the MGH FTD Unit!
  • Fall 2015: Welcome to Nordia McBean, new clinical coordinator for the MGH FTD Unit! Welcome to four new post-docs who will work on various on research projects. Annual Congress of the International Psychogeriatric Association
    Berlin, Germany
    October 13-16, 2015
    Dr. Dickerson gave a keynote lecture on tau PET imaging in neurodegenerative diseases.

    International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease
    July, 2015
    Washington, DC
    In addition to research on Alzheimer's disease, this conference featured a variety of types of research on FTD and related disorders. Dr. Dickerson, Dr. McGinnis, and Dr. Xia presented our team's research, including tau PET imaging.

  • In summer 2015, we were delighted that Katie Brandt joined our team as a Community Resource Specialist after having worked as a consultant for over a year. We also welcomed three new clinical fellows to the FTD Unit, who will be assisting Dr. Dickerson and team in our mission to provide the best clinical evaluations and care for our patients. Click here to read more about our team.
  • In summer 2015, we said a fond farewell to Dr. Sara Mitchell and Dr. Abid Qureshi, who graduated from advanced fellowship training and are moving on to new positions. We will miss both of you and look forward to continuing to work together to try to conquer these diseases. Harvard's 19th Annual Dementia Course
    May, 2015
    Dr. Dickerson and Dr. Atri co-directed the 19th annual Harvard Dementia Course for health care professionals. 2014
  • The first issue of our newsletter was published in the fall 2014; click here to read it.
  • In the fall of 2014, we hosted our fourth FTD Caregiver and Family member conference in Waltham, MA. We were delighted that more than 80 participants joined us for an overview of research and discussion of care issues. Thanks to our staff and speakers, and to patients and families for making it a memorable day!
  • We presented new research at the 9th International Conference on FTD in Vancouver, BC.

  • In summer 2014, we said a fond farewell to Dr. Kimi Domoto-Reilly and Dr. Simon Ducharme. Dr. Domoto-Reilly is moving to University of Washington Seattle to start her own program on FTD and early-onset/atypical dementias. She worked with us for 6 years and we will sorely miss her! Dr. Ducharme has been with us for 2 years and is moving to the Montreal Neurological Institute to start his own FTD and related disorders program. We will miss both of you and look forward to continuing to work together to try to conquer these diseases. 2013
  • We published our new Social Impairment Rating Scale for FTD.
  • We published and presented new research on a variety of aspects of FTD at multiple conferences throughout the year.

    2012
  • We participated in the 8th International Conference on FTD in Manchester, England.

  • Click here to read the front page New York Times article on FTD, May 6 2012

    2011
  • Our colleagues at the Mayo Clinic and UCSF identified a new gene for FTD and ALS, helping to explain how both conditions can sometimes run in one family. Estimates suggest that this gene, on chromosome 9, may explain about 12% of familial FTD and up to 22% of familial ALS. It is not yet possible to test for this mutation in individuals, but we will update you with information about this possibility as it develops. Read more MGH FTD Unit Research Update; click here for slides and to read more about it.

  • New diagnostic criteria for PPA were published, providing further details about how to classify PPA into three major subtypes.

  • We participated in the development and validation of the new international consensus diagnostic criteria for behavioral variant FTD.

    2010
  • Our new scale for measuring language impairments in primary progressive aphasia (PPA) was published in 2010 in the journal Neurology; click here for more information.

  • We participated in the 2010 International Conference on FTD, hosted by Dr. Ghetti in Indianapolis, Indiana. 2009
  • Read about our fall 2009 Boston-area FTD Caregiver Educational Conference here and schedule here. The turnout of 85 registrants (mostly family member caregivers, also friends, social workers, etc) was excellent and we all learned tremendously from each other.

    2008

  • PBS Newshour segment on FTD In November, 2008, PBS aired a Newshour segment on treating dementia. Featured in this piece are patients, caregivers and experts discussing frontotemporal dementia. Dr. Bruce Miller of UCSF, among others, are featured. Click here for more information.

  • Click here to read about our new paper on the "Cortical signature of Alzheimer's disease, published electronically in July 2008, Cerebral Cortex.
  • The MGH FTD Unit was officially launched! We participated in the 6th International Conference on FTD, hosted by Dr. Van Swieten and colleagues in Rotterdam, Netherlands.

    2007
  • The MGH Primary Progressive Aphasia program was launched to provide comprehensive clinical services and to perform research on PPA.
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    Philosophy
    We are an interdisciplinary team of clinicians and researchers who are dedicated to the belief that, through the application of scientific approaches, we will advance our collective understanding of brain function and dysfunction which will ultimately improve our ability to diagnose, monitor, and treat patients with FTD and related disorders.