• Rosa Capozzo, Stefano Zoccolella, Maria Elisa Frisullo, Roberta Barone, Maria Teresa Dell'Abate, Maria Rosaria Barulli, Marco Musio, Miriam Accogli, and Giancarlo Logroscino.
• Center for Neurodegenerative Disease and The Aging Brain at the Hospital Pia Fondazione "Card. G. Panico"/University of Bari, Tricase, Italy.
• J. Alzheimers Dis. 2020 Jan 1; 76 (2): 481-489.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic is changing clinical practice in neurology, after the governments decided the introduction of social distancing and interruption of medical non-emergency services in many countries. Teleneurology is an effective tool for the remote evaluation of patients but its adoption for frontotemporal lobar dementia (FTD) is in a preliminary stage.ObjectiveWe evaluated multidisciplinary assessment of patients with FTD using telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsAll patients received a diagnosis of FTD during 2018-2019 according to international criteria. A structured questionnaire and Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR)-FTD were used by the neurologist with patients and/or caregivers. Index symptoms of COVID-19 infection were searched.ResultsTwenty-eight clinical interviews were completed with caregivers and four with both patients/caregivers. Most patients and caregivers were satisfied with the neurological interview and expressed their willingness to continue to be included in remote evaluation programs (90%). Fifty percent of patients experienced significant worsening of clinical picture and quality of life since the start of social distancing. The CDR-FTD scale revealed a significant worsening of behavior (p = 0.01) and language functions (p = 0.009), compared to the last in-person evaluation at the center. One patient presented index symptoms of COVID-19 infection and was confirmed to be positive for COVID-19 with pharyngeal swab.ConclusionThe study was conducted in Italy, one of the countries hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with interruption of all non-emergency medical services. Our study indicates that telemedicine is a valid tool to triage patients with FTD to increase practice outreach and efficiency.

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