Study of visuospatial skill in patients with dementia.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the visuospatial function in different types of dementia with the visual object and space perception (VOSP) battery and to relate the degree of visuospatial dysfunction with different types and stages of dementia.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: A sample of 53 participants with dementia and equal number of age-, sex-, and education-matched controls were recruited for the study. Participants were evaluated for visuospatial skill using VOSP test battery. The scores of dementia patients were compared with controls and within dementia cohort scores were compared based on stage of dementia.

RESULTS: The dementia group scored low in all of the subtests of the VOSP battery in comparison to controls. Alzheimer's disease (AD), dementia of Lewy bodies (DLB), and vascular dementia (VaD) patients performed more poorly than controls in all subtests examining object perception and space perception. The three semantic variants of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients scored low in all four subtests of object perception, whereas behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD) patients performed normally. The scores deteriorated with the advancement of dementia in all patients from the dementia groups.

CONCLUSIONS: Visuospatial function is significantly impaired in dementia patients particularly in AD, DLB, and VaD patients from the beginning, and the impairment is severe in advanced disease stages.