Abstract

MATALLANA, Diana et al. Dementia and Creativity: Emergence of Pictorial Activity in a Patient with Primary Progressive Aphasia. rev.colomb.psiquiatr. [online]. 2011, vol.40, n.4, pp.807-817. ISSN 0034-7450.

Introduction: Occasionally, patients with syndromes that involve frontotemporal areas have developed either an interest in art or an emergence of pictorial creative activity not present before the disease. Objective: To present the case of a 66 year-old woman who had no pre-morbid artistic ability but started to paint at age 56, before the onset of behavioral and expressive language impairment. Marked deterioration of language and behavior progressed to a primary progressive aphasia (PPA), a subtype of FTD, and the unusual talent became the first symptom of the disease. Method: Case study. Results: The neuropsychological, behavioral, and brain image results will be discussed and some examples of the oil pictures will be illustrated. Conclusion: Cognitive processes associated with the emerged creativity in PPA are called paradoxical functional facilitation and might be related to dominant anterior temporal lobe pathology that enhances posterior brain activity. Future efforts to understand the emergence of such an unusual talent outline this case study.

Keywords : Dementia; creativity; aphasia; brain.

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