Jargonagraphia in a case of frontotemporal dementia

Jargonagraphia is known to occur after discrete brain lesions but not in pr imary degenerative dementia. We report a patient with frontotemporal dement ia who developed jargonagraphia and nonfluent aphasia. Written output was g raphically preserved but consisted of short words intermingled with abstrus e neologisms. MRI showed predominant right frontotemporal cortical atrophy accompanied by white matter hyperintensities in the right anterior subcallo sal periventricular region. Diagnosis and MRI were corroborated by extensiv e neuropathological findings obtained 8 months later. The agraphia in this case is discussed with reference to both specific macroscopic and microscop ic pathoanatomical lesions. We suggest that jargonagraphia can appear in fr ontotemporal dementia depending on the localization of lesions. (C) 2001 Ac ademic Press.